Until We Meet Again
by thesociallyawkwardtwins
Summary: Gale and Katniss part ways after the war, but what will happen when they find each other again? Could a letter bring them back together for good?
1. Chapter 1

**1. A Letter to Katniss**

The front door closes with a gentle thump as Peeta makes his way into the house. Katniss takes both the mugs of coffee, intending to meet Peeta at the counter. He walks into the kitchen, rifling through the mail he just retrieved from the mailbox. Normally, they receive almost no mail, but today is an exception. Peeta's carrying quite the stack of papers.

"That's a rare sight," Katniss comments, taking a sip of her coffee as Peeta sits down at the bar. She sets his mug of black coffee down in front of him. "And it's not even your birthday."

Peeta gives a faint smile. The amount of mail he gets from strangers on his birthday... "Don't get too excited. Most of it's from the government," Peeta says. But his finger stops on a small letter. The name written across the front gives him pause. "Wait, Katniss, there's something here for you."

He pulls the letter from the stack and holds it out to Katniss. He's so distracted by the bright pink letter beneath that he doesn't look at the return address on Katniss's letter. If he had, he might have given Katniss more preparation.

Since he didn't, Katniss almost spits out her hot mouthful of coffee when she sees who sent her this letter. Immediately, her finger slides under the flap, ripping open the envelope. She nearly gives herself a paper cut, but it's not as if she's paying attention.

With shaking fingers, Katniss removes the stationery from within the envelope. Her heart gives a slight pause. "Commander Gale Hawthorne" is written in embossed typeface across the top of the card in blue ink. Her finger brushes over the name, one that she used to say a lot, and a strange constricting feeling is sent through her chest.

She takes a deep breath and gently flips the front up to read. Written in Gale's distinctive writing is:

_Dear Catnip,_

_You know I've never been much of a writer. I've always believed in the power of action over words. I thought words were a cowardly man's weapon, and I don't know if I've ever been more correct about anything in my life. I never deemed it necessary to be a good writer, considering I never thought it was an important skill. But now I understand the importance of words to say what my mouth cannot._

_I suppose that's where I'll start. I don't know where else I would. I'll just start by getting it down on paper: I'm a coward, Katniss. I'm such a coward that I can't even look you in the eyes and say these things. I'm sitting at my desk right now, writing them to you, several years after they should've been said. I'm using a coward's weapon behind the safety of my bullet proof vest. I don't know what could be more pathetic. And for that, I'm really, honestly sorry._

_That's really where I'm getting at with this. I'm sorry. I don't know if I can say it enough. I'm sorry to every corner of my black, damned soul. I'm sorry for everything. I loved Prim like my own sister- and honestly still do. And there's no doubt in my mind right now that her death was my fault. My own heartless hands created that bomb as a way to kill the enemy, and I was playing by a set of rules that knew no moral boundaries. I honestly didn't care who got in the way; I didn't care who I took down in my wake. It didn't matter. Because I'd fallen to Snow's level._

_The war changed me. No, that gives me too much credit. That makes it sound like it was the war who's at fault, not me. And it is my fault after all. So, let me reword that: I changed during the war. Over all those years, I had so much anger and hate pent up against the Capitol that when I was finally given the chance to throw it all back in their faces, I didn't hold back. I went mad. I wanted them to suffer like we had. Like I said, I had sunk down to their level. I became a heartless monster, just as they wanted me to._

_I lost all humanity. I didn't care what toll I took on others as long as the Capitol suffered. And I became this man. The man I've become is one I'm not proud of. So, once again, I'm sorry. _

_I don't think I can get down on paper how sorry I am. It's killing me, it really is, and it's not as if I don't deserve it. I'm sorry I killed Prim. I'm going to detest myself for it until the day I die. I will regret the day I helped Beetee create that design. I'm sorry it took me so long to write this letter. And I'm sorry I broke your heart. For that, I'm eternally sorry. I loved you like I've never loved anyone else, and I ruined your entire life. And like the selfish person I am, I sometimes try to convince myself that none of this is my fault, and that I can wander back into your life somehow, but that's just a dream that I ruined with my own hands. You deserve more than a person who's lost their mind (Once again, I'm giving myself too much credit. That sounds humble, pathetic, self-sacrificing). You should live a life full of love, compassion, and safety. That's something I took from you, and you can never fully gain that back. _

_I hope somehow you understand how ungodly sorry I am. I hope my words don't sound apathetic and uncaring on paper like this. I wish I had the courage to face you, so that your last image of me isn't a coward who wrote you a letter, but really, I deserve as much._

_I hope you have a life that is full of love and security and beauty. I pray that you can be whole again like you were before we met._

_Love forever and always,_

_Gale Hawthorne _

It takes most of Katniss's willpower not to crumple the letter in her fist. But she can't unread what she's read. So instead she lets her hand creep to her mouth, holding it there.

She could hear him in that letter. It was like he was talking to her. In her head, it wasn't her own voice but his that read the words. She could imagine him, in a government uniform, sitting at a solid mahogany desk, bent over this paper, writing slowly and carefully, choosing every word with equal care. And it occurs to Katniss that she wouldn't have imagined all that if she didn't miss him.

Katniss lets out a strangled sob. Peeta drops the stack of letters he was holding and nearly upsets his coffee. He is instantly at her side, one hand on her shoulder. "Katniss, what's wrong?" he asks frantically. "Is everything all right?"

Katniss starts to shake a little. She lowers the letter, crumpling it a little, and turns around so quickly she spills some of her coffee on the tiled floor. She knocks into Peeta in her haste to get to the desk. "I need some paper."

"Katniss, what's going on?" Peeta asks, concerned.

"I have a letter to write," Katniss says in a strangled voice. "I need to write it now."

Katniss clatters around in a desperate search for a pen. In her moment of distraction, though it's an invasion of her privacy, Peeta glances at the envelope that's lying on the bar in front of him. He sees the return address, and he understands. Without another word on the matter, Peeta leaves the room.

_Two Days Later..._

Gale can hardly keep his eyes open. It's late, he just got out of work, and he wants nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep until morning. He stifles a yawn, taking the stairs up to his apartment two at a time. He reads the front of the letter on top of his mail stack idly, trying to give his mind something to do. Another letter from his anonymous fan girl, it appears. That'll give him a laugh in the morning when he reads it. They always do.

Gale reaches his apartment and unlocks the door without even looking at his hand. He yawns again and starts flipping through the stack of mail as he makes his way into his apartment.

Bills. Paylor. Bills. Formal request from District Four.

All important, but they can wait until morning. Stifling another yawn behind his hand, Gale is seconds from dropping the mail on the counter and falling into bed fully clothed when he reaches the last letter.

And he stops in his tracks. Actually stops. Perhaps he stopped breathing, too, because the room spins a little. There's no way this is real. He almost wants to forget that it happened and walk off to bed, blaming hallucinations on his lack of sleep, but there's that other part of him that desperately wants this to be real. He wants the letter to be from her, and he wants it to be in good spirits.

Before he really knows what he's doing, Gale has the top of the envelope ripped open. He slides the very top of the enclosed letter out of the flap and sees the edge of a piece of notebook paper. Typical Katniss.

Somehow, he finds it within himself to laugh. The momentary feeling of friendship fuels his courage, and he pulls the letter the rest of the way out. Very slowly, he unfolds the paper and takes a deep breath.

A million thoughts rush through his tired, aching head at once. What if she wrote back angrily, saying that she'll hate him forever? What if her response is insincere and hateful? God, he got his hopes up for no reason... But she wouldn't be so heartless as to write back, raise his hopes, and smash them with words of rage and never-forgive-yous. She wouldn't do that to him, would she?

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows she might. She's capable of it.

Grief and desperation do make people do crazy things...

But Gale swallows up his doubts and tells himself she'd never write back if she didn't have something relevant to say. He lets his eyes fall on the words written in quick, hasty handwriting:

_Dear Gale,_

_First and foremost, your letter made me realize something incredibly important that I might not have discovered otherwise: I miss you. I really, really miss having you around, Gale. When I read the letter, I could literally hear you in it. For those few seconds, I had you back- the way you were before- and it made me realize how much I really, truly missed you, Gale._

_With that said, I discovered something else as a result of that. I discovered that forgiveness is a hard thing to give. It's a hard thing to give because it means you have to give up something that was once important to you in order to have something else that you love. It forces you to weigh what's more important to you. And I've never been good at that- makings choices based on emotions. You know that. I've always made decisions based strictly on survival. And forgiveness isn't a decision I can make based on survival._

_But that's the other funny part about forgiveness: once you realize that you need to forgive someone, the rest just falls into place. That's what your letter did to me, Gale. It made me think like that. I just kept thinking about you, and I saw you in the back of my mind, and I thought about what made us such good friends for all those years. And I knew I needed you back. But, most importantly, I knew I needed to forgive you._

_I also thought a lot about Prim while I was reading your letter. I thought I'd gotten over her death, but I realized the wound was still raw when you mentioned her name. And how long has it been since the war? A year, two, three even? The wound was still raw. It didn't occur to me until today that it's because I haven't let her go yet. I've been holding onto the guilt and pain ever since the war. It's sort of like after my dad died, and I was heading down that really scary track. It was you that pulled me out then too._

_And that takes us back to you. Here's what I've discovered: In hating and blaming you, I was really just being the world's worst hypocrite. Who was I to hate you for something you had only the littlest involvement in when I did things that were much, much worse? You only designed the bomb. You didn't build it, and you sure as hell didn't authorize the dropping. The war did things to all of us, Gale, not only you. It sent me into a very dark place as well. I'm not proud of who I've become either, but I think I'm starting to figure myself out._

_Anyway, forgiveness is a hard thing, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to give. So, please, know that I forgive for whatever you think I blame you for. And, also, forgive me as well. I don't want us to go the rest of our lives hating each other. I'm really sorry for everything I said and did during and after the war, but I'm mostly sorry for blaming you for something you didn't do. You deserve this apology._

_I miss you so badly, Gale. Write back please?_

_Love always, _

_Katniss_

_PS: Who do I think I'm kidding? Obviously pen doesn't erase, so I'll just tack this on as a post script: I need to talk to you. I need to see you. Like, face to face. I want to see you again. So, please call me or something. I can't stand not seeing you any longer._

Gale's heart starts to pound so hard that he can't hear anything over it. Excitement leaks into his veins along with an emotion he hasn't truly felt in a long time— happiness. For the first time since the war, Gale Hawthorne feels happy. It fills him from his core to his extremities like wildfire.

All in a matter of seconds, Gale drops the letter and throws himself at a drawer in his kitchen. He tosses random, useless crap out of it, shoves around papers, and finds things he genuinely doesn't remember owning until, at the very bottom, he finds the tiny scrap he was looking for. A single phone number.

Gale remembers getting that letter from Plutarch after the war. He stuck this little piece of paper in the envelope. "Katniss's phone number- in case you ever want it." All the wounds were still raw then, and it killed Gale to get that in the mail. But he'd kept it because he had that awful glimmer of hope in the back of his mind that something like this would happen. And now it has.

Gale's shaking hand closes around his cellphone. For several seconds, he holds it there, just breathing. His heart is beating like a hummingbird on raw caffeine. His fingers hover over the buttons. Doubt and belief battle in his head, and, ultimately, Gale's fingers seem to move of their own accord, punching in the numbers.

When his brain registers what he's done, it fills him with a ravaging excitement that should almost be considered terror. He can feel his heart beating in his throat. Every ring makes his stomach lurch. Every second of waiting makes him give up a little more.

That's when Gale remembers the time difference between District 2 and District 12. Considering it's late at night here, it should be bright and early in—

"Hello?"

Her voice. Katniss's voice. She's tired, barely awake.

The only thing Gale finds appropriate to say is, "Catnip?"

"Gale!" she says. He can hear the smile. The happiness. The shock. Behind his closed eyes, he can see her smiling face. "The next train to District 12 is tomorrow at 2 o'clock. Can you be on it?"

His mind goes first to work. Will Paylor let him off like this? He doubts it. Less than 24 hours' notice, not a legitimate excuse, too much work piled up. And of course she'll wonder why he wants to go to District 12... And he'll tell her he's going home. He's going home to fix some things he should have mended a long time ago.

Without hesitation, Gale replies, "Of course."

* * *

_A/N: I'm strangely upset with myself for making this slightly Everlark, but what can you do? As always, reviews are appreciated ;)_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thank you soooo much to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! I appreciate your support, and it really motivated me to get this chapter done! I would especially like to thank the guest reviewer who told me to go die in a hole. Your fierce hate of my Galeniss honestly made my day ;)_

_The updates for this story might come a little slow because I have nothing prewritten, but I would like to post a new chapter every week. I will definitely try my best to meet that goal, and I'd love for all of you to stick with me!_

* * *

**2. Welcome Back Home **

Katniss hangs up the phone, and a little grin appears on her face. She's about to head back to bed for the time being, but Peeta comes into the kitchen, sleepily rubbing his eyes.

"Who was on the phone?" he asks, blinking at the early morning light streaming into the kitchen.

Katniss pauses for a second, twirling the phone cord around her finger. "Gale," she replies slowly. Despite the fact that she's unsure of Peeta's standing on her relationship with Gale, she can't keep the small smile off her face.

Peeta stops but recovers almost immediately. "Oh?" he says, and Katniss can't figure out what tone he's using. "Was it in response to your letter?"

Katniss nods. "Yeah. He's coming to District Twelve..." She drums her fingers on the counter. "I told him he could stay with us."

"Of course," Peeta says.

He glances up at Katniss, but she can't seem to meet his eyes. She chews on her lower lip as though thinking deeply about something and opens her mouth to ask him a question, but he's already anticipating it.

"Katniss, I'm happy that you and Gale are getting along again," Peeta says, covering her hands with his. "I don't want you to think that I'm... jealous or anything."

Her eyes flash with concern. "Oh, Peeta, I—"

"No, Katniss, it's really fine," he insists. "I'm happy for you."

Katniss searches his face for any hidden emotions, and, when she finds none, she throws her arms around his neck. After a second or two, she kisses his cheek and pulls back with her hands on his shoulders.

"Gale will be here at two," Katniss says. "I'm going to the station later to meet him."

"Sounds good," Peeta replies.

Katniss smiles and bobs out of the room, probably to go change. It only takes him a second or two to realize that this is the happiest he's seen her in a long time.

* * *

Gale can feel Paylor's frustration through the phone.

"I haven't taken personal time since I started working for you," he points out, wincing as he hears her heave a deep sigh.

There's a pause. "How long will you be gone?"

"Not long," Gale says. "A couple days. Three or four."

Paylor practically growls. "You're going to abandon us when we most need you? We just started that new project with District Four, and you're leaving now?"

"I'm sorry it's a bad time," Gale says in a hard voice. "I have something important to take care of."

"How come your family is suddenly important to you again?"

Her words sting, and Gale flinches. He's glad she's far away on the other end of a phone call, rather than face to face. "I'm not visiting my family," he says. "The Mockingjay asked me to come to District Twelve."

"The _Mockingjay? _The girl who was on trial for murder not too long ago?"

Gale sighs. "Yeah, that one. And it's thanks to her that you're president."

There's a long pause of deliberation on the other end of the phone. "Fine, you can go, but just know I'm not happy about this."

_Sweet relief._ "Thank you, Paylor," Gale says. He tries not to sound too happy.

"You're lucky I'm not firing you."

"I know."

The line goes dead, and Gale's left to ponder if visiting Katniss is worth that last threat. It doesn't take long to decide that it is.

* * *

_Several Hours Later..._

Gale watches as the train station of District 12 rolls closer and closer out the window of his compartment. The old forest looks exactly as it used to as it rushes by in a colorful blur. In fact, Gale is struck by how remarkably similar the new district is to the old one. If he shuts his eyes, he can almost transport himself back to the time when everything seemed a little bit simpler. When he and Katniss were always on speaking terms.

As the train pulls into the station and slows to a stop, Gale unfolds the letter that he has closed in his fist for about millionth time since receiving it last night. He rereads Katniss's words again, especially the "love always", and then folds it back up. They can get back to that unconditional relationship. With time, they'll get back to that.

Slowly, he gathers his things, and he tries to imagine what's waiting for him on the platform. Katniss said she'd be there, but is she waiting excitedly or awkwardly? On the phone, she sounded excited, but what if seeing him face to face is too much?

Gale shakes his head. He needs to stop doubting and start believing. If he ever wants Katniss to fully trust him again, he needs to stop acting uncertain and trust her completely. That's how they used to be, and he'd do anything to have that relationship back. It was uncomplicated and easy, and, in this new world, that seems really refreshing.

Gale steps unto the platform and is immediately sucked into a blur of travelers. He is filled with a strange desire to find Katniss as quickly as possible, but he restrains himself. Two letters and a phone call can't solve everything. It can solve some things but not everything.

He doesn't have to look long. All in a second, Gale finds himself standing directly in front of the woman he's wanted to see for a good three years. The whole internal conflict he had on the train about how Katniss was feeling seems pointless now as a giant smile appears on her face the second their eyes connect. He feels himself smile too, and it occurs to him that even though several years have separated them, he still thinks she's the most beautiful girl in the world.

Before Gale can even think, they both take a step towards each other, and Katniss's arms find their way around his neck. Without meaning to, he lifts her straight off her feet, eliciting a distantly familiar laugh from Katniss's lips.

Katniss holds onto Gale desperately, not wanting to let go too fast. She had forgotten what it was like be hugged by someone so much taller and stronger than her. She had forgotten what it was like to be lifted off your feet and to want to disappear into someone's strong and steadfast arms.

When her feet touch the ground again, there's a lull between them as Katniss takes a moment to memorize the differences in Gale's appearance. He appears older obviously, but he's no less handsome. Katniss is amazed at how his charming, endearing smile and thunderhead gray eyes still remain exactly the same as they were three years ago when she saw him last.

"Hey," Gale says lamely, breaking the silence. He smiles somewhat hesitantly, like he's unsure of how to proceed in the conversation.

Katniss feels a giddy laugh bubble up on her lips. "Gale, it's so good to finally see you," she says. The words seem to tumble out easily like they used to, and she can feel the layers of awkwardness between them wearing away, piece by piece.

Gale's smile intensifies as he searches her face, memorizing the differences in _her_ appearance. She hopes he can find parts of his old best friend, too.

"It's been too long," he says. There's a tiny amount of guilt when he says that, like he still hasn't forgiven himself for all the terrors of the past. "Way too long."

Katniss can't figure out how to answer his remorse, so she blurts, "I've missed you so badly, Gale," she says, staring into his eyes.

"Me, too," he replies.

There's a pause as Katniss works up the courage to say, "I want it to be as though we never said goodbye. Do you think we can do that?"

Another fresh smile cracks through Gale's guilt. "I think we can manage it."

He refrains from adding that nothing would make him feel more complete.

* * *

As they walk through the new district, Gale finds himself wholly distracted by everything around him. The last time he was in Twelve, it was nothing but burnt piles of ash with the occasional broken down structure still clinging to life. Those bad memories are now replaced by normal little houses and newly planted trees. The happiness heals the old wounds and introduces a new sort of life for this down-trodden district.

"They've done a good job out here," Gale says, looking around at everything.

Katniss smiles and tucks her hands in her pockets. "Yeah, they have. Even though we still live in the Victor's Village, we make an effort to get out in the new district."

Gale takes in a slow breath. "_We?"_

"Peeta and I," she replies. Katniss finds herself unable to meet Gale's eyes.

"Oh," Gale says, and there's a small barrier between them again. He pauses before adding, "Do you two… live together?"

In that fraction of a second before she starts talking, Gale tries to prepare himself to get his heart broken again. He waits for her to say something about marriage— something to shatter him all up inside. He waits for her to make him wish he hadn't gotten his hopes up.

Katniss watches something about Gale deflate, and she answers immediately. "We do live together, but we aren't _married_ or anything. We just stay together to help each other, you know?"

"That's nice." He wants to say _convenient_, but he doesn't.

Katniss feels that small mass of frustration and confusion ball up in the back of her throat, and she recognizes it well. It's that old fight between Gale and Peeta rising up again. She can already feel Gale putting up the wall, guarding himself against both of them.

She looks up at him, but he doesn't meet her gaze. "Please don't do this again," she almost pleads. "I don't want you to feel guarded around Peeta…" She swallows back her hesitance. "Gale, I've known you longer than I've known him, and I care deeply about you. Don't leave me without that again."

Gale softens, but he's not sure if he can destroy the walls completely— even for Katniss's sake. "I won't," he replies.

"Good," she says. She looks relatively pleased again.

He wishes he had the courage to tell Katniss that he still loves her.

* * *

As they approach the house, Gale's sense of dread increases. He can feel Katniss growing slightly nervous as well, which doesn't help. They both falter in front of the door, and Gale sets his jaw like he's about to go to war.

Just the thought of Katniss and Peeta living together sends waves of rage and pain through him. Despite the fact that he still has no idea where Katniss actually stands on her relationship with Peeta, Gale's mind instantly jumps to the worst. Even though he's standing in front of a blue door, all he can see are images of Peeta's lips all over Katniss. A single, imagined touch makes Gale want to scream.

The worst part is, it's not even his place to feel that way. He shouldn't have an opinion. As far as he knows, he's still the friend. He has no right to tear Peeta to pieces for looking at Katniss too long. In fact, it's Peeta who has the right to do the protecting. Gale _shouldn't_ desire to kiss Katniss. He _shouldn't _feel like he needs to be her armor. He _shouldn't _still be in love with her.

Besides, he's been away for far too long, and he knows far too little.

Gale becomes suddenly aware that Katniss is watching him intently, and he finds the need to cover up his tracks. "It still looks the same as it did," he says slowly.

"We haven't changed it," Katniss says. Her hand closes around the doorknob and twists it.

Gale hardens his exterior, feeling a wave of unnecessary jealousy wash over him. He shouldn't do this— he shouldn't hate Peeta for doing the exact same thing that he himself is doing. They both love Katniss. It's just that Gale feels a need to prove himself, though it pointless.

He steps into the house just behind Katniss, and it's still incredibly similar to before the war inside as well. Not much has changed.

He is hit hard by the fact that it may not just be true of the house decorations. It may be about _them_ as well.

"Peeta, I have Gale," Katniss shouts into the house. Her voice comes out as easy-going, but Gale can see the slight panic in her eyes.

If only he could appease her panic by being cordial. That's a long shot, though.

Peeta Mellark appears around the corner at the opposite end the hallway. Just like the rest of the district, he seems remarkably unchanged from the baker who used to live in Twelve. If Gale didn't know about his hijacking, he could think that this man hasn't changed a bit, but, of course, Gale knows everything about the abuse the Capitol did to him, so it's a miracle that Peeta appears normal.

And that just makes Gale even more jealous. _How can he stand up next to that?_

"Hello, Gale," Peeta says genuinely, a smile appearing on his face. He sticks out a hand. "It's been quite a long time since I saw you last."

Gale shakes Peeta's extended hand, and it just seems outwardly awkward. "It has," he replies almost indifferently. "It's good to be back." _And that's got nothing to do with you._

There's a long, drawn out pause.

Peeta clears his throat and searches for a conversation topic. "Your letter meant a lot to Katniss, you know," he says.

Katniss's gaze jumps up to Gale. "It did," she says seriously. Her eyes are truthful, and it's almost like she's silently telling him to let his guard down a bit.

"Her letter meant a lot to me as well," Gale comments. He keeps his gaze on Katniss, unwilling to be the coward. "More than I could ever let her know."

Something changes in Katniss's eye for a moment— an emotion stirs deep within them. A tiny smile stirs on her face. It's a smile reserved for Gale alone, never Peeta.

Peeta must feel awkward for that flicker of a second because he clears his throat. Katniss snaps back to normal at the sound and blinks at him.

"Why don't you take Gale upstairs, Katniss?" Peeta suggests kindly.

"Right, of course," Katniss says quickly. She walks to the stairs, glancing over her shoulder at Gale. "If you'll follow me upstairs."

* * *

Katniss leaves Gale alone in the guest bedroom of her house for a couple minutes to sort himself out. He takes a moment to check his phone, and he already has at least ten messages, but he honestly could not be bothered to listen to them.

He just sits down on the bed and reaches into his pocket for the letter from Katniss. He was telling the truth when he said how much it meant to him. If only he could find words to tell Katniss what it felt like for her to tell him that she forgave him and that he mattered to her. That feeling was indescribable.

A knock at the door startles Gale out of his haze.

He stuffs the letter back into his pocket and answers. "Yeah?"

Katniss sticks her head into the room. "I was thinking about going hunting. Would you go with me?"

A smile appears on Gale's face the second hunting is mentioned. He hadn't realized how much he missed hunting with Katniss until his precise moment. "Definitely," he replies.

Katniss grins. "Meet me downstairs in a bit, okay?"

Gale nods. Hunting, he can handle.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: So you know how I said I would post a chapter a week... Well, I sort of dropped the ball on that one. Sorry about the late update, but I had a hard time getting through this chapter. Hopefully this is a somewhat interesting chapter._

* * *

**3. The Hunting Trip**

The kitchen falls into awkward silence as Gale appears in the doorway. He can tell that Katniss and Peeta haven't said a word to each other during his stint of time alone upstairs . The unspoken words between all three of them settle around the room like dust, waiting to be swept up later.

Katniss immediately gets to her feet. "Ready to go?"

Gale nods. "Whenever you are."

Katniss brushes off her lap and glances over at Peeta, who's standing on the opposite side of the kitchen. "We'll be back later, okay?"

Peeta nods silently and retreats into himself slightly, and it seems to make Katniss feel a little uncomfortable. That's probably why she quickly leads Gale out the backdoor towards the forest.

As they walk across the green space, something slightly companionable settles between them. It's a distantly familiar feeling from all the times that they went hunting together before the war. Gale's glad that they can still have that.

That's why he's glad they had those two letters to start their relationship. It kept them from having to break down most of the barriers face to face. Already having forgiven and thanked, it was surprisingly easy to fall back into step together. But Gale can still feel some walls between the two of them. They still have to find their places in each other's lives. That is something a couple letters, a hug, and few small conversations can't mend.

Gale decides it'll be easier if he focuses on the lingering feeling of friendship that still hangs on. They reach the spot where the electric fence used to stand before he says anything.

"I'm just going to warn you, it's been a while since I shot a bow," he confesses. "It's probably been a year or two."

Katniss shrugs, smiling a little. "That's alright. Once you get your bow back in your hands, it'll come back."

"Will it?" Gale asks, slightly humorously. A second question pops into his head: _Will our relationship just come back, too? _and that darkens him a little. They are far too complicated to fall back into place as fast as his aim will.

Katniss doesn't notice the difficulty bouncing around in his brain and assures him, "It will, I promise."

Gale's mind buzzes with words he could never say out loud. _Say the same about us, please, and don't let Peeta get in the way. I want you to be mine forever, but you want us to be as if we never said goodbye. Where does that leave me but waiting for your answer? I am still the man in the Hanging Tree. I am still waiting. And I would wait forever for you to assure me as surely that we will be together. _

Katniss's back is turned as she leads him down a familiar path of the forest, and Gale is able to shake himself free of the tangled web of thoughts. The words still gnaw at the back of his mind, screaming to be freed from his lips so that they won't be trapped and twisted inside him, but he's too much of a coward to tell Katniss his actual feelings.

Or maybe he just respects her enough not to burden her. Hasn't that been the reasons for his actions throughout their entire relationship since their first kiss in the forest? He's wanted and desired her, but he let her continue to run back to Peeta because he was in no position to tell her otherwise. And now, isn't he doing the same thing? Loving her from a distance, trapped behind the boundary of friendship, unable or unwilling to make Katniss feel obligated to come to him?

It's almost becoming too hard. He wants to destroy the difficulty between the two of them and tell her how much he still cares. And, yet, there's a chance she could strike him down, and they could lose each other forever.

It would be worth it, though, if she said yes. That glimmer of hope, like a distant sparkle of sunlight at the end of a tunnel, almost fuels his confidence to spill everything to Katniss. Because it isn't fair on either of them for him to keep himself bottled up. Katniss can't expect friendship if she wants to go back to before they said goodbye. She can't expect him to just have forgotten the forbidden love he harbored for her— although, at points, he, too, wanted to forget it, but he never could.

Katniss startles him out of the haze of indecision by stopping in front of the hollow tree where the weapons are. Flashes from the past replace the scene playing in front of him. Gale sees Katniss in a much younger form hand him a bow and quiver, her face looking much more honest and open than it does in the present. Those were the times when they were completely honest with each other— no questions, no terms. Just honesty and trust.

Now, as Gale takes the bow in his hands for real, he can't say that they have either. They can try to trust each other, but they can only make attempts because Gale will always know he's still lying to her about their friendship. He will always know the feelings that are locked inside his chest like it's a cage- feelings she won't know. They can't have trust without honesty. They've broken that rule before many times.

When you lie, you lose trust. It's as simple as that.

Gale doesn't process the extent of his preoccupation until he hears the sound of an arrow whistling through the air and lodging in the bark of a tree. His arms go down at his sides, and he realizes that _he_ shot that arrow.

He wonders briefly what he was aiming for.

He mustn't have been too far off because Katniss walks over to the tree with a slight smile on her face. She closes her hand around the shaft of the arrow and pulls it out of the bark. "Not bad," she says, a grin curving her lips.

She tosses the arrow back to Gale, and he is hit with another echo from the past. No doubt, Katniss has said that exact line before, probably also in reference to his aim. Was that all the way back when she was teaching him to shoot? How long ago that seems... It's like all of that happened in another lifetime, in another universe.

Silence falls around them, and Katniss seems to be caught up in her own moment of déjà vu. She recovers remarkably fast though and says, "I told you it would come back, didn't I?" she comments lightly, gathering up her own weapons. "Do you think you can aim at moving animals now?"

Gale feels himself smirk despite everything else. _Why does she have such a pull that she can make him smile when he's feeling the most awkward around her? _"I don't know, Katniss. I guess we'll have to see," he teases.

She rolls her eyes and leads him off farther into the forest. Gale tails her, leaving a few feet between him, as memories unfold before his eyes. He remembers the path through the woods, but the growth disguises the sights that might have been familiar to him. Facts and lessons learned flicker into his mind about what plants to avoid and where to step in order to walk silently. But everything about the way he moves seems forced and thoughtful.

Being on the hunt used to just be second nature, but apparently the few years he's been out of practice have stripped him of that ability. Gale has to think about his motions. He has to think about how to aim when his target is far away. He has to process through how to get his bow up in place in order to take down a squirrel. Compared to how he used to feel while out in the forest, he seems to be struggling.

About an hour into the trip, Katniss seems to take notice of his frustration. She notices how his movements seem less fluid and more thought out. It's not as though she thinks he's out of shape or anything. His physique is enough to rule that out.

Katniss becomes curious enough to ask him after it takes him a fraction of second too long to take down a rabbit that darts out from behind a clump of bushes. "Gale, I know you said that you haven't shot a bow in a while, but you haven't hunted either, have you?" she asks tentatively.

Gale sees no point in trying to lie. If he wants to bring honesty back to their relationship, he better start with everything. "I haven't hunted since the war," he comments. There are a lot of things that he hasn't done since the war, come to think of it.

This is startling news to Katniss, even if she was expecting it. She tries to remember back to all the time they spent as hunting partners, and it's horrifying to think that Gale gave up on it all since her whole life seems to revolve around the time she spends in the wide-open forest. Gale used to seem the most alive when he was breathing in fresh air beneath a never-ending sky. It's hard for Katniss to believe that he would cut that out of his life.

"Why?" she blurts before she can stop herself.

That twists a knife in Gale's chest. _That's a good question,_ he thinks silently to himself. How can he possibly explain the reckless abandon of the past three years? How can he possibly describe why he threw away everything that reminded him of his painful past ? How can he possibly tell Katniss that it was too painful to hunt because it reminded him of his unquenchable love for her?

The complicated answer comes out as, "There were a lot of things that I couldn't handle after the war… They were too hard…"

"So you figured you'd just leave everything behind, did you? You thought it would help you get rid of it all?" Katniss asks.

Said in a different manner, the words would be a jab at him for ditching his past life, but Katniss just sounds like she understands. And that's why the floodgate opens. Her questions of why, the understanding look in her eye, and Gale's general desperation to tell Katniss the truth control his words.

"Everything, that is, except you," he says. He tries to be casual about what he's confessing as he leans over to grab the rabbit he killed, but this confession has been weighing too hard on his chest. He glances over his shoulder at Katniss and immediately looks out into the distance when he sees the look on her face. He loses control of himself, and the truth finds its way onto his tongue. "I could never seem to leave you behind. You were everywhere. That's why I wrote you the letter, I think. To get rid of you. But I couldn't."

There's a tense bit of silence as Gale balls up the courage to make eye contact with Katniss again. She flinches at the emotion swirling in his eyes, and she feels tiny pains in her chest.

Gale keeps his eyes on her, willing himself not to look back at a puddle of sunlight a couple feet away. "You're a part of my life, Katniss… I can't accept otherwise."

It hangs in the air between them like a physical presence. It's out, and it floats out of Gale's lips into silence.

Katniss's eyes are open a little wider than normal, and her lips are parted ever so slightly as she absorbs the words. She could try to take "a part of my life" to mean friendship, but the look in Gale's eyes forbids it. He means something more than friendship- deeper and more powerful than friendship. Katniss feels a familiar twinge in her chest, a twinge of indecision and heartbreak. It is the omnipresent battle between the obligation of loving Peeta and the forbidden choice of loving Gale. Her heart starts to pound in her ears like a drum as buried emotions start to surface.

Katniss's eyes flicker shut for a moment as questions buzz around her head. _What did I mean when I said I wanted it to be as though we never said goodbye? If we went back, where would we be? We'd be a pair of broken hunters that could barely hold themselves together. And, of course, I'd be back to the middle of a decision. Peeta or Gale?_

Her eyes open, and only then do the two of them realize just how close they're standing. Much closer than they were when the conversation started.

The proximity makes Katniss's heart beat faster. "Gale, you know I need you as part of my life too… You know that, but… I—"

She cuts off mid-sentence as her eyes flutter shut of a second. When they open, all she can do is stare into Gale's gray eyes and try to memorize every color and emotion she can find there. And he does likewise until it becomes too much.

Their faces are mere inches from each other when Gale pulls himself away. He turns around and walks a couple paces away from her, deflating with every step. "I'm so sorry," he breathes.

Katniss feels wounded. _Sorry? Why is he sorry? _"No, don't—"

"I just had to tell you, Katniss," he says quietly. "I… I can't lie to you anymore. Not after what's happened before."

"Gale, I understand," she says, stumbling forward a couple steps, reaching towards him to pull him back. "Gale, _please_—"

Katniss gets close enough to laying her hand on his arm, but he flinches away from her touch, turning back to meet her face to face. "I don't want you to feel obligated, Katniss," Gale says seriously. "I would rather you turn me down point blank than kiss me because you feel that you need to. Never feel obligated, Katniss. Don't make yourself feel for my sake."

"I don't feel obligated!" Katniss says loudly. Everything sort of swirls around then— all the emotions and thoughts. Her heart beat picks up again, and the battle rages in her heart. "I just… I need time."

Gale glances up then and holds her gaze. There's so much truth in her eyes that there's no way that he could even consider saying that she's lying. She beseeches him softly, begging for some time to think.

And he can give her that. "I would wait forever for your answer," he replies.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: So here's chapter four! Big shout out to Ellenka for reviewing all three chapters! You are awesome :) Thank you for the continued support!_

* * *

**4. Words That Slipped Out**

Somehow, they fall back in a routine hunting trip.

Gale's not sure how they manage it, really. Somehow, that moment when they were just staring at each other, his words hanging in the air, dissipated into their surroundings and absorbed into them. It throbbed through him with his heartbeat, and he could almost hear it in Katniss's pulse too, but, of course, he must have been imagining that.

Katniss recovered first, bending over silently to retrieve her bow. He followed without question, and they went on tracking and taking down countless animals until her game bag was full. That's where they're left now, trekking back to her house in boundless silence.

One word consumes Gale as they walk: _Time. _That's all he can think. _She wants time. Needs time. _And he thinks about how, maybe, just maybe, he can give her that. Time will— without much doubt— bring only heartbreak and a negative answer, but there's always that glimmer of hope. He may just be prolonging the obvious, but the suffering would be worth it if she says yes.

And, in time, perhaps she will. Perhaps his constant dream will come true, and her gray eyes will fill with only love and devotion as she watches him. And they'll finally be able to be honest with each other as they were before the Hunger Games ripped apart their lives.

As Gale and Katniss emerge from the tree line, the late evening sky turns a faded copper color. The sun is setting in the distance, splashing the horizon in faded red and gold. It's almost a good sight, but the mood of the hunting trip still lingers over top of the two of them, effectively souring the sunset.

Still in silence, they enter Katniss's house through the back door to the overwhelming sent of cooking food.

"Peeta, we're back!" Katniss calls into the house. Her voice is almost startling to Gale since they haven't talked in several hours

The banging around in the kitchen stops, and Peeta's head appears in the doorway. "Kill anything good?"

The only thing Gale fully remembers killing was their friendship, and that doesn't quite seem like the answer Peeta's looking for.

There's a slight pause, and then Katniss lifts the game bag and sets it on the table. "Sure," she replies.

It looks like Peeta's trying really hard not to recognize the painful awkwardness that now stretches between all three of them, and he does a remarkably good job masking his facial expressions. He blinks a couple times and then nods at Gale and Katniss. "Why don't you two get cleaned up? Dinner will be ready soon."

It gives them an excuse to separate, and that's probably a good thing. If Katniss wants time, then it better start now.

* * *

The silence during the first few minutes of dinner is almost physically painful. The scrapes of silverware on dinner plates are deafening. Every breath seems to echo. When Katniss takes too big of a drink of water, Gale can audibly hear her swallow. That's how quiet it gets.

Peeta shatters the silence after an agonizing couple of minutes. He takes a drink of water and looks at Gale. "So what is it that you do for a living now?"

Peeta is sitting opposite Gale at the table, and Katniss sits between them, wary of them talking over her. With any other conversation topic, it could seem like a stand-off.

"I work for President Paylor," Gale says evenly. He takes a drink. "I head the program that's rebuilding the country. We're in District Two and Eight right now."

Katniss clenches her jaw. She keeps remembering back to the conversation they had in the forest about the past. It's obvious that Gale's life between the end of the war and now is not a time he's willing to discuss. His mind seems to become so consumed with all the terrible things that he has no room left for the good. He's haunted by it. Katniss is just counting down the seconds until Peeta unwittingly finds a trigger.

"Oh, that's so great," Peeta says genuinely. "It's fantastic that you're continuing to give back to this country."

Gale's mind flashes with images of destruction. The Nut collapsing into flames. District Eight flattening beneath fire bombs. "I suppose you could say it's fantastic," he says slowly. "It feels more like an obligation to me. Something I have to do."

Peeta seems confused, but Katniss looks down at her plate. One word he said sticks in her mind, shouting louder above the rest. _Obligation. _That's what he said she was feeling towards him. _Obligation. _He thinks she feels _obligated _to love him because of what has happened in the past. Whatever she's feeling now, it isn't obligation, though. That's something Gale doesn't understand. This time, there's no obligation. She doesn't _have _to do anything. She doesn't _have _to feel anything.

"Why do you feel obligated, though?" Peeta asks Gale. He seems genuinely curious.

Gale thinks he's digging for it now. Like, maybe, Peeta's searching deeper into the harsher topics so that Gale will explode and disperse into fragments. That's too unlike Peeta, though. He wouldn't do that, not even after getting hijacked. That must mean he has unintentionally stumbled upon a topic that always sets Gale on edge.

"Oh, come on now, Peeta. You must already know the answer to that," Gale says, staring bitterly at him. When Peeta shakes his head, Gale bites the bullet and says it out loud. "I destroyed District Two, Peeta. Of course I feel like it's my job to build it back up. A person always feels the need to create something good to cover up their mistakes when they're consumed by guilt."

Both Peeta and Katniss seem to be stunned into silence after that. It was just a string of words that slipped from Gale's lips until the other two were able to give it context. They both know what he did during the war. Gale himself even detailed the scattered mess that was his sanity during the war in his letter to Katniss. They all assumed that he'd been driven mad by the war, but now they've heard it out of his own mouth.

Gale takes a moment to quiet his screaming mind and continues much more calmly than before. Maybe it's just to prove to them that he hasn't lost his mind entirely or that he has a grip on his insanity now that they live in a free country. "Katniss, you remember when we were planning to blow up the Nut… You tried to stop me," Gale says slowly. He looks over at Katniss, who immediately shoots her gaze at the table. He's not sure why he brought her into this; it's not winning him any favors. Maybe it all comes back to the honesty thing. He shakes his head bitterly. "Should've listened then, huh? Would've saved me the guilt…"

Katniss audibly swallows and looks up at him. Her gray eyes flash with concern. "Look, Gale, it was a hard time for everyone. You need to stop blaming yourself for all this shit—"

Peeta interrupts her. He, too, looks concerned. "What I don't understand is why you think your actions were that wrong. You were working for the good of the rebels. You—"

That's all it takes. Gale snaps. "Since when is killing a thousand people okay, Mellark? Since when is that acceptable?"

"I know it's not _acceptable_ per se, but it was during a war time," Peeta insists. Gale can see him trying to backtrack. He's struggling to get back on safer grounds. "War calls for drastic measures sometimes—"

"It's not as though you understand, Peeta," Gale says in a harsh voice. He's starting to shake as all the haunting memories force their way into his mind. All the dead faces. All the tear-streaked cheeks. All the unblinking, unseeing eyes. "You've never killed a man. You wouldn't know how it feels."

Katniss cuts in, panicking. "Gale, you didn't single-handedly kill anyone in the Nut. That was a group effort. You can't shoulder the blame for that. You have to leave it behind."

Before he can respond, Katniss starts to wonder if this is all stemming from their conversation in the forest. Suddenly, she feels at fault for Gale's sudden openness. Did she create the wound that's letting all of this slip out? She never meant to hurt him, not even when she asked for time while they were hunting. That was never meant to hurt him. It was meant to prevent him from being harmed… in case she made the wrong decision again.

Katniss looks up at Gale now, and their eyes connect with full force. She almost falters immediately under his sudden look of desperation. He is no longer the heartless, obsessive soldier that she left behind at the tail end of the war. That's all been stored deep inside him in the form of guilt. Now, as he sits before her, all that's left is the Gale from before. The Gale who hated the corruption of the Capitol but was also gentle and steadfast. The Gale who she could count on for anything and everything. The Gale who never lied.

And he's not lying now either. That's what's coming out of him. _Truth. _

"But, Katniss, there were men that died at my hands," Gale says, staring hard into her eyes. "And if they didn't die by my hands, they died beneath my bombs."

Everyone at the table knows who he's talking about now. Prim_. _

Katniss opens her mouth, and one thing comes to her tongue. _Leave that behind, too, Gale. You had little involvement in what actually happened with those bombs. I'll repeat what I said in my letter: I forgive you for whatever you feel you need forgiveness for, and I hope you'll forgive me for not telling you sooner._

But Peeta opens his mouth first, and Katniss has to swallow back all those words.

"Gale, stop thinking about how you killed Prim," he says, not even imagining how his choice of words is stabbing Gale in the chest. "It's behind us now. What's done is done. We're not judging you by your past actions. You can be a different man."

But Gale's still reeling from the punch that the first sentence gave him. Not even the whole sentence. Just a part. _You killed Prim. You killed Prim. You killed Prim. _

He's on his feet before he can say anything else. Blinded by pain and guilt, he leaves the room in a rush, feeling like an interloper in the perfect world that Peeta Mellark has recreated around himself. He was perfect before the hijacking; he's perfect now. Between then and now, there was that silver of time where Gale might have had a chance to be a more desirable figure than Peeta in Katniss's life, but he ruined it when he lost his mind to the war.

Consequently, he now feels as though he has no reason to be here.

Halfway out the front door, he hears Katniss call after him, and she actually sounds like she's on his side. It's so surprising that he almost stays in the house. But it's not quite startling enough.

Gale slips out onto the porch, hoping the cool night air might be enough to calm him down.

* * *

"Gale, wait!" Katniss shouts. She jumps out of her seat and tries to snag his arm, but he's too fast. She considers running after him immediately, but the flash of pain she saw in his eyes means he probably needs some time to cool down.

When she jerks back around, Peeta's on his feet too. "What did I say, Katniss?" he asks frantically. He looks genuinely and deeply concerned that he drove Gale from the room. "I was just trying to help—"

"It's not _what_ you said," Katniss says bitterly. "It's how you said it."

She throws her napkin down onto her seat, and, for some reason, she feels angry with Peeta. She knows he didn't mean to hurt Gale at all, but she still feels the anger nonetheless. In this one, she might be taking Gale's side. She knows what it's like to have people say things in a way that bites beneath your skin.

"What?" Peeta asks, still confused. He doesn't understand that feeling. He hasn't willingly done a bad thing in his life. A hijacking was the only thing that could drive him to harm another human being on purpose.

"You specifically said he killed Prim," Katniss says loudly. "You told him, 'Stop thinking about how you killed Prim.' That made it seem like you blamed him. It doesn't matter what you said after that. You had already confirmed what he was scared of."

Peeta looks wounded. "I'm so sorry… I didn't mean—"

Katniss grits her teeth. "I know you didn't mean it, Peeta. Just… stay in here. I need to talk to Gale."

Without another word, she turns on her heels and walks down the hall to the front door.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: As always, thank you sooo much for the reviews! I love hearing from all of you! It makes me so much more motivated to write. Also, I start school this week, so I might not be able to update as frequently. I will definitely try my best to continue getting a new chapter up every week, and I really do hope that you will all continue reading even if the updates get farther apart!_

* * *

**5. Back to Before**

Katniss finds herself a bit afraid to go outside and talk to Gale since she hasn't the slightest idea what she's going to tell him, but her desire to get out of the house away from the scene of the explosion drives her straight out the front door. She doesn't have to search long to find him, either.

He only made it to the porch, where he stands, his posture deflated. He's leaning over, hands gripping the railing, shoulder blades jutting out of his back. There's a definite conflict written all over his face, and not even the soft evening light reflected in his eyes can hide the pain she knows he's feeling.

Gale beats her to speaking. "I'll leave in the morning," he says. He doesn't meet her eyes, and he doesn't voice it as a question.

It startles Katniss enough to dissolve whatever she was about to say. "Gale, _please_, you don't—"

He swings his head to the side and looks at her. The sincerity in his eyes burns holes through her skin. "Come _on_, Katniss," he says, cutting her off. "Don't try to argue. You have no reason to."

"Gale, I want you to stay," she cuts in. "Isn't that a good enough argument? I don't want you to leave. I- I want—"

"Please don't do this," Gale growls. He leans back down on the railing, staring out into the sky again, and he looks like a beaten and battered fighter, too tired to go on. "Don't try to say things that you don't mean in order to make me stay. Don't get my hopes up to just dash them. Don't… don't lie to me anymore."

"I'm not lying!" Katniss says, taking a couple steps closer to Gale. "Why do you keep insisting that I am when you clearly know nothing about what's going on in my head?"

Gale's hands slam down on the railing, and the metallic thud sounds around them. "But I do understand, Katniss!" he shouts. His eyes flash as he glances over at her. "I don't know if you can see it, but I obviously don't have a place in your life!"

Katniss stops short, and her response dies just before it passes her lips. "What are you talking about?" she asks. Can't he see that the whole fight happened precisely because he has a place in her life? Can't he see that all of this is happening because her life is rearranging to make a place for him?

"I'm talking about Peeta!" Gale says, his voice sounding strained as it reaches Peeta's name. "Katniss, he's so untouchable. I can only ever dream of being as good of a person as he is, and he's even been hijacked! I can't shatter your relationship again. I can't— I can't put myself inside that again."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Katniss says sharply. "I refuse to let you leave just because you think Peeta's untouchable. I _want _you here. I just—"

"I already know what your answer is going to be," Gale says, turning quickly to look Katniss in the eye. He looks like a wounded animal just before the knife slits its throat. Terrified and dying. "I already know that you'll tell me you want friendship, and I don't think I can handle that anymore— not after what I've told you."

Katniss feels sick as every one of his words slices through her. "Gale, listen to me for just one second—"

"I don't need to wait around for your answer," he says, looking at her through a haze of pain. "I don't need to wait forever. I just want you to have goodness in your life, okay? I want you to be happy."

"Then you'll stay right here," Katniss says simply, looking into his eyes with as much fierceness as she can manage. He opens his mouth to respond, but she holds up a hand to silence him. "But nothing, Gale. You will stay right here, and you will listen to me."

Gale seems to be startled into complete silence by her bluntness. He watches her with eyes that are windows to turmoil, and Katniss can see right into his suffering. And, in that moment, she wants nothing more than to take that pain away.

"First and foremost, I want you to forget about the war for a minute," Katniss says seriously. Gale flinches a little, but she continues. "Just leave it behind. Forget about what happened between us. Forget about what I did to you. Forget about what you did."

Memories flash in front of Gale's vision, and most of them show him her face. He sees her watching him with a million different feelings. In the silver-gray eyes that appear in his memories, he can recognize all emotions. Enraged. Desperate. Agonized. Depressed. Happy sometimes. He sees to two of them hunting in the District Thirteen, screaming at each other, aiming arrows side by side, and even kissing.

She's asking him to forget about all of that. Wipe it clean. But what does that leave him with?

"All I want you to remember is our friendship," Katniss says forcefully. "I want you to remember that natural and relaxed connection that we used to have before life screwed it all up."

"What you're asking me to forget is unspeakable, Katniss," Gale responds in a pained voice. As much as he wants to let it all go, there are things that will cling to his conscience for the rest of his life. Things that Katniss should be repulsed by. "Forgetting is a whole different thing from forgiveness. It's impossible to just let that all go away. What happened happened. I can't just—"

"Did it ever occur to you that when I said I wanted to go back to before we said goodbye that I meant our first goodbye before I went into the Hunger Games?" Katniss asks, cutting off Gale's words and his breath. She suddenly feels her heart rate pick up, and massive surge of emotion flows through her. She's desperate to make him stay, to make him feel relief. "I want to go back to that. When things were easy and natural between us. I want that again. I _need _that."

Something indescribable dissolves— one of those barriers in their relationship; a barrier that Gale created the moment he suspected that Katniss may not return his feelings. Now, the wall falls down before their eyes, and he struggles to allow himself to believe that she may not be referring solely to a friendship. But there's always the indication that she still wants to end up in a platonic relationship. He can never be sure with Katniss.

"I need that, too," he says so quietly that Katniss can barely hear him. "And you're not just telling me this because you feel like you need to?"'

"Stop saying that, Gale!" Katniss says, her voice raising a little. "Stop saying that I feel obligated because I don't! I know how I acted during the war— how I strung you along because I didn't want you to feel hurt— but I can promise you that that's not how I'm feeling now! I've stopped going along with the emotions that other people want me to feel. These feelings are entirely mine, Gale."

Gale watches her, memorizing the honesty in her eyes. It occurs to him that this is the first time in a long time that he is absolutely positive that neither of them is lying to the other. This may also be the first time since the war that Katniss has allowed herself to feel something for someone without be told to. Gale's heart starts pounding in anticipation as he waits for her to say something to make him or break him.

Katniss looks back at him without fear. "If anything feels like an obligation, it's my relationship with Peeta. My love for Peeta has always been the choice of the Capitol; it's always been laid out before me. It was expected of me to love Peeta, and I just didn't question it. That's obligation," Katniss says, the words flowing out without her conscious thought. It all just starts coming out like a river of truth. "I even thought to myself in the forest earlier that I felt obligated to love Peeta. You were always the daring choice, Gale. When I thought about you, you weren't the obligation. Over these past few hours, my feelings towards you haven't been obligated. I was making a choice— a free, willing, and scary choice."

"Scary?" Gale breathes. That's what all these feelings can be described as. Scary. It's terrifying to have Katniss respond to all the emotions he's thrown out.

"Yes, scary," Katniss says, and she's shocked to find that her voice sounds choked and strained. "Because it's hard. Making a decision to pull you back into my life is hard, and that terrifies me. It terrifies me because I know that if we come back together, things are going to be really difficult, and I wanted things to stop being so hard… But I'm willing to make the hard decision. I'm willing to be terrified because I want you back in my life, okay?

"I don't want things to be hard, Katniss," Gale says slowly.

"But it's going to have to be," she replies. She looks up at him, suddenly standing next to him at the railing. "You know for a fact that we won't be able to get along immediately— that's just us. We always fight and make things difficult, but it works out in the end. And maybe someday things will be easy again."

There's silence for a couple seconds as Gale absorbs the conversation. The only noise is the chirping of crickets off in the distance. A few fireflies illuminate the evening lawn with their small bursts of light, and a gentle breeze blows by. The scene seems oddly calm, and Gale is amazed at how unaffected their surroundings are by the conversation that just took place. His whole word is shifting, but the physical world remains constant.

He looks over at Katniss with desperation. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" he asks quietly. Suddenly, Gale finds it impossible to tear his eyes away from hers. All he wants to do is watch her perfect gray eyes stare into his without any fear, anger, or regret. "Why did you ask for time when we were in the forest?"

"Because I did need time," Katniss replies slowly. "I was already trying to figure out where we belonged in each other's lives, and when you told me you needed me in the forest earlier, you just startled me. I needed time to think things through."

An overwhelming sense of relief floods over Gale's entire mind when she says that he only startled her. Every inhibition and nerve that he's felt since their awkward conversation in the woods disappears as Katniss tells him that she didn't ask for time because she didn't want to shoot him down yet.

Katniss moves closer to Gale's side and tentatively sets her hand down over top of his on the railing. She's nervous, at first, that he might flinch away or tense up, but she finds that the second their hands connect, his whole arm relaxes.

"And I think I still need a little more time," Katniss says quietly. She looks down at Gale's hand as she curls her fingers between his. "I need to reorganize my life… I need to fix it so that no one gets hurt— so that everything will finally fit together."

Gale glances out at the purple horizon. "Where does Peeta fit into all of this?" he asks.

"That's what I need to figure out," Katniss replies. "I need to rearrange everything so that you both can be in my life. I don't want to hurt either of you anymore. I done injuring and I want to start healing. I just need time to figure out how."

Katniss's request settles in Gale's mind, and he decides that he can definitely give her as much time as he needs. He would give her a million years now that he knows he has a place in her heart.

Gale feels Katniss lean closer to him, and she looks up at him again. "And I want us to have a chance to find our way again," she says softly. "I want us to have time to figure our relationship out again. I don't want us to be stuck with the fragments of our old, broken relationship. That will take time to fix."

Gale nods, and he gets this inexplicable feeling that something inside him is already starting to heal in that exact moment.

Katniss watches the fireflies lighting up the yard, and they seem a bit like stars that have fallen to earth. They're full of hope and new promise. She decides to treat one like a shooting star and wishes with every fiber of her being that she and Gale can fix this. Fix everything.

After an eternity of companionable silence, Gale speaks. "Where does that leave us now?"

Katniss feels a little smile on her face. "Back to before we said goodbye."

* * *

Peeta stands at the end of the hall, watching Katniss and Gale through the front window, and he hates himself for it. He feels like he's intruding on something important, but he can't bring himself to leave his position. He just has to know what's happening.

He regrets it, though, when he watches their conversation go from screaming at each other to something much more intimate and thoughtful. When Katniss's hand reaches out and touches Gale's so softly like she's afraid it'll shatter, he feels his world crack. Peeta feels as though he's losing something that was never really his in the first place.

He moves his gaze from their hands to Gale's eyes, and he has to look away because he feels like a trespasser on an important moment. The way Gale looks at her— it's unparalleled. Katniss seems to have a gravity for him, like he is endlessly and infinitely drawn to her as though she has some sort of fantastic power over him.

For a couple seconds, it seems like everything he's known since the end of the war is a lie. He has lived under the impression that Katniss at least cared deeply about him, and now he knows for sure that she could never love him. How could he have been so stupid to believe that she would ever forget about Gale, who she was obviously meant for? How could he have been so stupid?

Katniss and Gale leave their spot in the window, and Peeta quickly moves back down the hall and into the kitchen. When he hears the front door open, he pretends that he can't feel the warmth between the two of them. Peeta pretends to not notice the look of confliction Katniss gets when she glances at him and tells him that she is going to bed.

And then, when they're both gone, Peeta feels his word crashing, shattering like glass.


	6. Chapter 6

**6. Real or Not Real?**

Sleeping is impossible for Katniss with thoughts of Gale and Peeta buzzing around in her head. When she hovers on the threshold of dreams, the echoes of the two of them start calling out again, and she wakes back up to stare at the gray wall of her bedroom. She imagines the three of them as puzzle pieces that must somehow fit together, and she turns them around and around in her mind, waiting for the moment that they'll click together.

But it's never that simple. Puzzle pieces don't just fall together— you have to put them in place.

She rolls over and stares at the roof, memorizing the pattern of the texture on her ceiling. All she can think about is how good it felt to have her hand in Gale's and how Peeta looked a little broken when they came back inside.

That's what she was afraid of. Hurting him again. She's always hurting him, always ruining some aspect of his life. Why can't Gale and Peeta both exist safely in her life? And, more importantly, how much time is it going to take to get that fixed once she finds a way to keep them both around?

At the thought of the challenges waiting before her, Katniss's mouth goes as dry as a desert, and she fills with a deep sort of uneasiness that drives her from her bed. Silently, she slips from her room and into the hallway. The door next to hers— Gale's room, for the time being— is slightly ajar but obviously closed, so he must be asleep. The relief he must have felt after he discovered that his years and years of waiting had paid off must have been so powerful. He's probably sleeping better than he has in a long time.

Peeta's door across the hall is open, though. He must be up as well. Sometimes Peeta just doesn't sleep, as exhaustion is better than the nightmares that he discovers behind his eyelids.

Katniss pads silently down the stairs and slips into the kitchen. She rubs the tiredness from her eyes and fills a glass with water. She takes a long drink, hoping it will calm her nerves slightly, and it works for a moment.

Then she hears the ragged breath.

At first she blames her tired, overly worried mind for making the noise up, but it comes again, slightly louder and more desperate. Her mind instantly goes to Peeta, who she knows is also up at this hour. She sets her glass down on the counter and follows the heavy breathing into the hallway.

There's a waking nightmare waiting for her there.

Peeta's hunched form is silhouetted against the purple of the window behind him. His whole body is rigid, tense as solid metal. Every breath comes out hard like it pains him to expand and contract his lungs. His fingers are curled tightly around the back of the chair in front of him. There's a water glass on the table, and maybe he was reaching for it before the flashbacks took over, but they must have gripped his mind so fiercely that he fell short.

Katniss never really knows what to do when Peeta gets like this. It's happened many times since the end of the war, and he always seems so fragile and yet so powerful. Besides, half the time when he's having flashbacks, he still believes that Katniss wants to kill him, so it's a dangerous game to approach him. Sometimes all it takes is a couple words to get him back, but other times it takes an hour of gentle coaxing to pull the real Peeta back to the surface.

Katniss stands in the doorway for a moment, praying that Peeta can fight his way out of the flashbacks by himself, but after a few seconds, his whole body starts to shake, and Katniss summons the courage to intervene.

She moves silently across the room until she's standing directly next to Peeta. He doesn't know she's there, though, because his eyes are closed hard against the images invading his mind. But when she lays her hand gently against his arm, his eyes fly open immediately.

"Peeta, it's alright, remember?" Katniss says quietly. He gets a panicked look on his face, and she holds onto his arm just a little bit tighter. "Everything's okay. You're safe. Nothing you were seeing was real."

His eyes dart around the dark room, but they land on Katniss more than they should. The panicked look in his eyes turns into a strange sort of rage, and he yanks his arm out of her grasp. An icy cold terror fills Katniss as she realizes that this is going to be one of those difficult times where it seems like it's going to be impossible to get Peeta back.

"Peeta, it's really okay," Katniss says as gently and soothingly as she possibly can. "Remember what's real and what's not."

Tentatively, Katniss reaches out to touch Peeta's arm again, but he lurches backwards, eyes staring at her with tense suspicion. She wants to beg him to come out of the flashback, but she knows that's not really going to help. She's got to offer him proof.

"Peeta, what are you seeing?" Katniss asks, trying to look as honest as possible. "Tell me what you're seeing. I can—"

Peeta's eyes fly shut. "You love me. Real or not real?" he bursts.

Katniss's heart sinks deep into stomach. That question has always terrified her since the answer is always a no. Whether it was just after the Games when she really didn't have any feelings for him or after he was hijacked when it would have been too confusing for her to say she loved him or now when she's finally allowing herself to grow closer to Gale. In the sense that he's asking that question, the answer is always no. Of course, he'll always be important to her, and she'll always love him as a very good friend since they've gone through far too much together to lose their relationship completely. But she'll never love him like he wanted or wants her to.

"Oh, Peeta," Katniss says in a soft breath. "You know how complicated that answer is—"

"You love me. Real or not real?" Peeta asks, his voice rising loud enough that it almost echoes around the room. His eyes are still scrunched up, like he's bracing himself for the answer.

She tries to evade answering one more time. "Peeta, you are a great friend, and I really do care for—"

"That's not what I'm asking!" Peeta shouts. It occurs to Katniss that Gale might be able to hear them now. "You love me! Real or not real?"

Katniss flounders. "I don't know, Peeta! I can't answer that."

Peeta's eyes flash with anger, and more difficult question bursts from his lips. "You love Gale. Real or not real?"

That takes Katniss's breath away. A yes pops to her lips instantaneously, but she holds it there, conflicted about the manic that that response would cause if she said it. She's not even sure how Peeta would react. He could become horribly heartbroken or completely untrusting. Either way, an affirmative answer could drive Peeta further into the flashbacks.

Katniss tries to formulate an answer. "Peeta, look—"

"You should be able to answer that one!" he screams. "You love Gale. Real or not real?"

Katniss's thoughts rage a battle in her head. Her first reaction was to say yes, but why did such a powerful instinct come into being so fiercely in her head? She knows that she feels a connection to Gale, but admitting her love for him would be a scary leap of faith. She had herself convinced that she needed time to grow used to his closeness in her heart, but maybe her heart has done some deciding of its own. Is that why it was so hard to get Peeta's puzzle piece to fit into her life? Because Gale's had already fallen into its clear place? Has she already accepted Gale wholeheartedly back into her life?

"Peeta, that's really complicated," Katniss stutters as her feels for Gale take on an entirely more developed depth. She knows the answer, but it's too harsh for Peeta to hear while having flashbacks. "I don't know if I can answer that yet. It's—"

"_I saw you_!" he shouts, starting to bridge a gap into insanity. "I saw you two on the porch earlier! Don't lie to me! Don't lie to me!"

"Peeta, calm down!" Katniss says hurriedly. She hears footsteps moving around upstairs, which means Gale's woken up to the sounds of them shouting. There are an uncountable amount of disasters that could take place if he comes downstairs and figures out what's happening. Katniss immediately starts shushing Peeta. "Calm down, there's no need to shout."

"You love Gale! Real or not real?" Peeta shouts. Katniss can only hope that the ceiling between them and Gale is thick enough to muffle the words.

"Peeta, stop asking me that," Katniss hisses. She glances furtively back towards the stairs, hoping Gale's gone back to bed. She takes a small step towards Peeta, trying to calm him down, but it ends up causing him to lash out towards her. His eyes are wild with anger and a desperate need to have answers to his questions. She feels like falling down on her knees and begging him to stop asking her because she doesn't want to hurt him. "I don't know the answer to that question, so stop—"

"Don't lie to me!" Peeta practically screams. His voice is booms with rage, and suddenly he's exploding towards Katniss.

She has no time to react before his hands clamp around her arms, strong as iron. Flashbacks take over her own mind as she remembers back to when he tried to strangle her in District Thirteen. At least then there were doctors and guards around to stop Peeta, but now there's only Gale, and it would be better off in the long run if he would just stay upstairs. Katniss feels helpless as Peeta shakes her roughly back and forth.

"Don't lie to me!" Peeta shouts. He keeps shouting it over and over again like that's all he can say.

"Peeta, stop!" Katniss shouts, trying to get her voice to come out over his screaming. "Please, Peeta! Let me go!"

"Stop lying! You love him. Real or not real?" Peeta shouts. His face is inches from Katniss's, and his fingers dig into her arms. "Real or not real?"

"Peeta, let me go!" Katniss says firmly, but her voice sounds really weak and powerless.

"_Answer me!" _

Peeta's shout echoes around the whole house as he throws Katniss backwards. His strength is surprising, and her feet actually leave the ground before she slams full force onto the small table by the couch. Something glass shatters beneath her— Peeta's full, unused water glass— and sharp pains rise up from her back and arm. A dull, aching pain takes over her hip, which was the point of impact with the hard edge of the table, as she rolls onto the ground.

"Answer me!" Peeta roars. "Answer me! All you ever do is lie!"

_Peeta, I— _The words don't come out of her mouth, though, because her eyes are blurred over with tears of pain and sadness. Everything about this moment seems too heartbreaking. Just the fact that charming, sweet Peeta was reduced to this by the Capitol just to get to her is enough to make her heart break into a million shards. She can think of nothing else left to say to him that might cover up her answer.

Peeta starts coming towards her again, still shouting things about how she always lies to him, but before he can grab her again, another pair of hands are hauling her away. Without a single second of thought, Gale pushes her behind him, putting himself in the crossfire between Katniss and Peeta. Peeta stops himself from going after Katniss, but his anger grows more intense with Gale's presence.

His arm flies out to point sharply at Gale, whose hand instinctively finds Katniss's hip to push her further behind him.

"You love him. Real or not real?" Peeta shouts for what seems like the millionth time.

The look on Gale's face is just as Katniss expected. He looks shocked, pained, confused. He's remembering back to the war when they used to actually play Real or Not Real with Peeta. He's thinking about it all. How fragile they are. How desperately they're trying to stay afloat. How maybe things might have been a little bit better if he hadn't come at all.

"Gale's extremely important to me, Peeta," Katniss says loudly. Gale is struck by that answer— how she couldn't say yes or no— and Katniss hates herself for that. She wants Gale to know and trust her, but she wants to lie for Peeta's sake. She wants to keep him safe.

Peeta's eyes dart around the room, and they fill with panicked and angry tears. That breaks Katniss's heart. Absolutely shatters it.

"They told me that you lie!" he shouts. "They told me over and over again that you lie, and I tried not to believe them."

Katniss's mouth opens and closes like a trapdoor, but she's dumbfounded. There is no response for that. There is no possible way to respond to that.

Gale, still firmly planted between the two of them, leans back and hisses something out of the corner of his mouth. "What is happening?" he asks.

"He's having flashbacks to the hijacking," Katniss's hisses back, her eyes never leaving Peeta. She tries to look away, but the tragic look on his face shocks her into staring.

"They kept telling me that you were tricking me, and that all my memories were cover ups for your lies," Peeta says. A tear streaks down his face like a drop of rain, but there's anger in his eyes and his voice. "I told them that I loved you, and they said that I shouldn't. Because you're a murderer. And a liar. And you were just trying to trick me so that you could kill me easier, and that you were evil."

"I'm not— Peeta," Katniss whispers, but his words drown her out.

"I tried so hard not to believe them, but it was stupid of me," Peeta barks, his voice rising again. "Because they were right! They were right about you!"

"No, Peeta!" Katniss shouts. She has a sudden impulse to push her way around Gale, but Peeta moves forward dangerously, and she decides better than to provoke him again. "Please! Please remember!"

"You lie! Everyone lies!" Peeta practically screams. Tears well up in his eyes. "They lied too! They told me it would be okay!"

Katniss's heart smashes into tiny shards, and she can almost see them blow away on the wind.

"They lied too," Peeta chokes out again.

Without warning, he pitches forward onto his knees and buries his head in his hands. The tears come freely now, pouring down his face. His whole body shakes spasmodically with the terrible wracking sobs, and he looks the most pitiable child. He's fallen out of the flashbacks into a pit of despair. Katniss tries to imagine what he must feel inside. She tries to imagine what it would be like to have to conflicting realities. She wouldn't know who to trust. She wouldn't know what to believe in. She would be much weaker than Peeta.

"Gale, you should probably go," Katniss whispers. She sounds a bit deflated.

Gale looks at her without saying a word, and she can see that something has changed in his eyes. He blinks a couple times, looks between her and Peeta, and then leaves in complete silence.

Katniss is left to try to coax Peeta into sleeping, in hopes that his flashbacks will turn into pleasant dreams. He deserves as much.

* * *

When Katniss tells him to go, it feels more like an order to leave her life than an order to leave the room.

Gale's relief is replaced by an overwhelming sense of misplacement and intrusion. No matter how good it felt earlier when Katniss was opening up to him, telling him that she just needs time to fall back in love with him, but now it just feels like another dream. There's that bitterness again. That obligation.

It seems to Gale that he's between Katniss and Peeta once again. He's just inserting himself in the middle of something that he doesn't belong in. He could feel the division that his presence brought into the air when he put himself between Katniss and Peeta. It was tangible. He doesn't belong.

And when Katniss said, "Gale is extremely important to me..." as an answer to a question of whether or not she loved him, it made their conversation from earlier seem false. It made it seem like she's been lying to him, stringing him along again, just to break his heart later. Either that or she said it to keep Peeta in the dark. Not that it matters which option it is.

Obviously, Katniss cares far too much about Peeta for Gale to insert himself back in her life. He'd be ruining their relationship that is still so fragile and carefully rebuilt. If Katniss tells Peeta that she still doesn't love him like he wants her to, he could shatter. Fall to pieces like a house of cards. Scatter like shards of broken glass.

This whole situation reminds him of during the war. Peeta was conveniently out of the picture, but they knew he was being tortured. No matter how forcefully Katniss threw herself into his arms, Gale knew that she still loved Peeta. Even when they rescued him from the Capitol, he knew he couldn't compete with Peeta because it was far too tragic. At times, Katniss insisted that it didn't matter, that she could still love him, and, for a time, Gale thought he believed her.

He thought he'd won her then, too, as he thought earlier this evening. But Peeta's had her the whole time.

He can never compete with Peeta. Peeta's too broken for her to ever leave him behind.

And Gale doesn't blame Katniss at all. It's only fair.

No matter how much pain he's in, he'll never stand up next to Peeta. Peeta will always need Katniss. Katniss will always protect him. They'll always need each other.

Gale hears them moving around downstairs, and he knows he has to remove himself. He has to take himself out of this before he breaks anything else.

He doesn't have much to pack.

* * *

_A/N: Sorry that this chapter is on the sad side. It couldn't be all rainbows and butterflies, I guess. Although, don't you fear. All will be resolved quickly ;)_

_Also, sorry about the late update. Geez, I've fallen behind. School has really kept me busy and prevented me from writing as much as I used to. It's quite sad. However, this chapter was a little bit longer than normal, so there you go :) _

_And if you find any grammar or spelling mistakes, please please please let me know. I didn't do a very careful job proofreading this chapter..._


	7. Chapter 7

**7. Goodbye **

The morning rises as it did yesterday, and the sun peeking over the trees is far too optimistic. Gale half expected to wake up to a sunset of sorts, considering the circumstances of his leaving this morning, but life seems to be going on as though nothing has happened.

The sun set on a promise of love and rose on the oblivion.

The world doesn't care about goodbyes. _People say goodbye every day,_ Gale tells himself. People say goodbye and leave pieces of themselves behind every second of every moment, and the sun always rises. It never fails. It never changes just because someone's gone and gotten themselves hurt. It's steadfast. It's strong. It's unchangeable.

If only people could be that untouchable. Life would be easier. Less painful.

Gale drags himself together and makes his way into the hallway without a sound. There's a hastily written letter in one of his hands— he felt that since it was a letter that brought him here, it only made sense to leave one behind as well.

It's easier to write things than to say them, Gale has discovered. When you say things out loud, you taste the blood. At least when you're writing, it bleeds straight onto the paper. He can just slip away, leaving a letter behind to say what he cannot.

That's something he talked about in the first letter he sent Katniss. How written word was a cowardly man's weapon. Well, now he's becoming the coward again.

He questions why it's so hard this time. He had the courage to tell her how he still loves her face to face. He had the courage to confess his deepest sins and emotions to her.

It must be the saying goodbye. That's what he's most afraid of. Gale has never been able to say goodbye to Katniss Everdeen. After the war, he never said goodbye— he just disappeared. The last letter he sent her was a failed attempt at saying goodbye. This final letter will be the last attempt at leaving her life, and he's still hiding behind a piece of paper.

He's disgusted with himself, but, at the same time, this must be the most painless way of doing it. It will still hurt for both of them— it'll ache and throb as they wonder what the other is thinking, how the other is reacting— but this way, they won't have to scream at each other. The pain will be indirect. The pain will be from loss instead of betrayal and anger.

Besides, for Katniss, it will be alright in time.

_For Katniss. _

For Gale himself, it's questionable. This could be the last blow. Getting on the train and accepting that he can't keep up the hope that someday he might hold Katniss in his arms might be that last shove that sends him over the edge.

He's lost a lot that can't be gained back.

_Forget about it. _Gale tells himself forcefully. _Let it pass. I am no longer the man in the Hanging Tree. I've come up with my own answer. I'm dangling by my neck, and she'll never come with me. _

Gale swallows and folds up the letter in his hand. As silently as he possibly can, he wedges it in the space between Katniss's door and the wall. It juts out there, and it looks sad. It looks like something's unfinished. It fits the moment, anyway.

Before he can take it back, he turns on his heel and walks down the hallway. He hears the lines of that note echoing around in his head as he goes, but he doesn't go back. He at least has the strength to do that much.

Gale was hoping that no one else would be up when he slipped away, but, of course, he's not that lucky. Halfway down the stairs, he hears the distant squeak of a tap and a rush of water and almost swears out loud.

Having to verbally say goodbye to Katniss would have been manageable. Convincing Peeta to allow him to leave will be harder.

There's always the chance that Peeta might not even hear him leave. Gale does walk like a ghost, after all. It's always been an asset to him while hunting— his ability to seemingly materialize out of the silence. If there was ever a moment where he truly needed that skill, it would be now.

But he's still not lucky. The gushing water stops in the kitchen, and the last step of the stairs creaks as Gale lowers his weight onto it. He grimaces, hoping that maybe it wasn't audible through the walls, but he hears Peeta moving down the hall instantly.

Peeta seems mildly surprised when he sees Gale stepping down from the stairs, so he was obviously expecting Katniss. Peeta's mouth opens just slightly, and he looks guilty, shaken, and a touch depressed. His thoughts bounce around in his eyes like he's trying to think of words to adequately cover his feelings, but then his eyes find Gale's bag.

The emotions in his eyes become more intense with panic. "Where are you going?" he asks. It seems like a stupid question, but he didn't think about it before saying it.

Gale hadn't thought of an answer for that one since he was hoping he wouldn't be intercepted. Part of him wishes that he could have just written Peeta a letter too, but that makes his cowardice come back to the forefront.

"Peeta, I have to go back to District Two," Gale says. That makes it seem like he has some sort of business-related excuse for leaving. He grits his teeth and focuses his eyes on the wall behind Peeta. "I— I think I've overstayed my welcome."

Peeta's eyes are wide now, full of raw concern, and his eyebrows are knitted together in perfectly innocent, untarnished emotion. "No, you haven't," he says. "What would make you think that?"

They both have an answer to that, whether they're different or not. Peeta instantly takes in a sharp breath because he realizes what's happening. Gale glances away sharply like he's recoiling from a punch and grimaces.

This is exactly why he didn't want to run into Peeta. Peeta will try to convince him to stay because he'll think that he's at fault. Part of the way, he _is,_ but Gale blames himself more, so the begging will be useless. Tedious. Pointless. He can't make Peeta understand his reasoning. Peeta will immediately blame himself instead of Fate for twisting Gale out of the picture.

There's silence for a couple seconds. Then Peeta explodes.

"You can't," is all he says. "You can't."

"And why can't I?" Gale asks sharply, surprising himself with his force.

"You'll break her heart," Peeta replies without hesitation.

_That breaks mine. _Gale thinks. Inwardly, he winces. Outwardly, he tries to make it seem as though it doesn't matter— he puts the wall back up.

"She'll be fine," Gale replies harshly. "She has a life with you, and if she's given time, she'll realize that she belongs with you. I don't need to be here preventing that any longer."

Peeta has infinite confusion in his eyes. "What on earth are you talking about? I thought if you'd have learned anything from the time you've been here, you'd know that Katniss obviously needs you, Gale! It's me who shouldn't be here—"

"Mellark, don't even say that," Gale barks.

They both stand there, looking at each other, each one silently trying to fathom how the other one could be thinking what they're thinking. They have polar opposite territories on either side of Katniss's difficult-to-understand mind.

"Where is this coming from, Gale?" Peeta asks. Yet again, he said something before he fully thought it through. Gale watches the change in his eyes as the answer falls into place.

"She cares a lot about you, and I'm not going to put myself in the middle of that again," Gale says roughly. "I don't want to be some roadblock. I'll just confuse her further."

"You _need_ to be here!" Peeta says loudly. "You need to stay here and be that roadblock! You don't understand! You're helping her already. But she just needs you to be in the way at first so that—"

"What the hell?" Gale asks loudly, cutting Peeta off. "Are you throwing yourself under the bus on purpose? You always do this! You're too— selfless! _God, _why can't you just let me-?"

"She needs you!" Peeta shouts. There's hurt in his eyes now. Real hurt. "She doesn't need me! She never has! You said at the end of the war that she would pick whoever she can't survive without, and—"

"Look at how well she's survived without me so far!" Gale says harshly, unable to control himself. "I don't fit. There's a reason she's been okay, Peeta. She doesn't need me. Ever since she met you, she hasn't needed me, and I hate that. I should never have sent that letter. I shouldn't have even tried. I don't know why I kidded myself!"

Gale shoves past Peeta, and the door is within sight. The early morning light darts through the glass window in the door with such intensity that it's almost heavenly. That seems to be a strange way of looking at it because Gale knows the moment he steps out that door and leaves Katniss's world, his own life will be a living Hell.

"Stop!" Peeta shouts. The intensity of his voice almost startles Gale enough to stop him, but Peeta has to physically grab his arm to turn him around. "You can't go! I know this is about something I did last night—"

"This has got almost nothing to do with what you did last night!" Gale says loudly. That's what Peeta wants this to be about— he wants Gale to blame him because perhaps it would be easier to convince him not to leave if this was about Peeta. Gale has given almost no thought to the fact that Peeta threw Katniss into a table last night. He can find no reason in that to hate Peeta for it because it all just feels too tragic. "It's about how Katniss reacted to what happened last night!"

Peeta searches desperately for a response, but he doesn't know what he could possibly say. Gale can see him struggling against the blackness that he remembers from last night. Gale wonders _what _he remembers. Is his life a constant battle of differentiating what thoughts and feelings are real and what are haunting nightmares?

"Katniss wants to protect you and keep you safe more than anything," Gale says. _More, even, than me._

"But that doesn't mean you can't have a part in her life," Peeta says.

"With Katniss, it does," Gale replies. "She doesn't let many people in, and, because of that, I think she's afraid of hurting those people she loves more than anything else. When she cares this deeply about you, she could never let me in. Not again. Remember how that turned out last time?"

Peeta's mouth hangs open, occasionally moving to form words he can't say.

"And, on the flip side, we have her relationship with me," Gale says. "She let me back in— not sure why— but she let me back in for a short time, and now she's afraid of hurting me again. She keeps asking me for time to figure things out, and I think that's only because she's afraid to tell me the truth. And that's what I hate. I hate that she has to lie to me. I hate that she thinks that stringing me along is better than just letting me go."

Peeta looks utterly confused. "Katniss isn't lying to you! Gale, what on earth are you thinking?"

"I want her to have love without interference," Gale says, overpowering Peeta. "I want her to finally be able to have a life that isn't a mess. If I get out of the way, she can have that with you. You can protect each other."

"Gale—"

"Let me go," Gale cuts him off sharply but in a tired voice. "Just let me go. I told you during the war that she'd pick whoever she couldn't survive without, and she will. Given time."

"Gale—"

"Don't wake her up," Gale says, facing the door, unable to look at Peeta. "Don't wake her up, and tell her to come stop me. Promise me that, at least."

Peeta doesn't answer before Gale slips away into the intense light.

* * *

Katniss falls out of a nightmare and lands on her mattress, eyes blinking open to bright light.

At first, the only thing her mind processes is the brilliance of the morning, but, then, the scenes from last night fall straight down upon her again, and her whole world dampens.

The swollen bruise on her hip gives a throb, but it's nowhere near as painful as the emotional damage that Peeta's flashbacks bring up in both of them. It shakes them both apart until they have to rebuild everything from the rubble once again. Peeta's confidence will be shaken this morning, and he'll be worried that he's overstepped something— especially since Gale witnessed last night's nightmare as well.

_Gale. _The thought of him makes Katniss hurt somewhere deep in her soul.

She knows she hurt him last night. She knows that the _whole thing _hurt him. But, in the moment, she couldn't think to act any other way than normal. She's never wanted to respond with "Real" more in the entire existence of the Real or Not Real game than she did when Peeta asked her if she loved Gale last night. She wanted so badly to say yes, but there's always that part of her that will want to protect Peeta.

She thinks back to how she actually responded. _Gale is extremely important to me. _ That, in no way, is a lie, but it's a terrible understatement. It was a bad answer, and it doesn't cover half of Gale's meaning in her life.

He's more than important. He's essential.

He's more than a want. He's a need.

She needs to make him see that. Gale, who has always believed in the power of solid proof and strong actions, needs something more than a few fluffy, indirect words about his importance to her. He needs something that sparks with honesty— or he might not believe her.

She has no idea what that something will be or what might come out of her mouth when she sees him this morning, but Katniss knows she needs to find him. The way they separated last night… That wasn't right. After the conversation that they had on the porch after dinner, dismissing him as simply "important" was surely a gut-punching move on her part.

She needs to describe that she wants to let Peeta know of her love for Gale when he's fully aware and not emotionally compromising. Surely Gale understands that it would be practically inhumane to break Peeta's heart while he's having terrible flashbacks? Surely Gale understands that she was only hedging around an answer last night because it would have been too evil to hurt Peeta?

Not because she doesn't love him. Having slept on the whole thing, she knows that she _does, _but after watching Gale leave the living room last night, Katniss isn't so sure that he understands her feelings for him.

Groaning, Katniss forces herself to get out of bed. If the sun streaming in through the curtains has anything to say about the mood of the day, everything will go right in the world. However, Katniss doesn't really believe that's the truth. There's something teasing in how happy the sunlight is.

Katniss walks over to the mirror on her wall and catches a glimpse of brilliant red along the back of her arm. She'd forgotten that the shards of Peeta's water glass cut her when she landed on them. She had completely forgotten. The tiny cuts have smeared, dried blood all around them, decorating her arm with what would appear to be splotches of red paint. She grimaces and wanders into her bathroom. As she dips her arms below the faucet, the water runs down the bowl in a pink, growing steadily paler until the water runs crystal clear again.

If only she could wash away the emotional blood this easily as well.

Katniss gets dressed, prepares herself for battle, and conjures up all her confidence. She's never been very good with words, but if today she can at least find the words to tell Gale that she loves him, that will be a success.

Her hand closes around the doorknob and opens the door, letting in a whole wave of dread. She has no idea what brought on the sensation that nearly knocks her to the floor, but then she sees it.

A little folded up piece of paper is falling through the air towards the floor, moving as though it is in slow motion. It tumbles through space, spilling emotions and _I'm sorry_ and unsaid words, but it seems to float on a wind. It flies like a butterfly with broken wings and dies on the carpet in a puddle of sunlight, the transparency of its wings showing one word.

_Goodbye._

* * *

Gale looks around the train platform, feeling blank inside. The only thing that's left inside him is a phrase and a word or two: goodbye, sorry, and _I will never stop loving you. _He wasn't thinking that when he was here yesterday. Standing on the platform last time, they were embracing, smiling, promising to be a part of each other's lives.

That was before they knew. Before _he _knew.

The sun glints off a window at the ticket office, and it blinds Gale for a couple seconds. He blinks, trying to get rid of the stars dancing in his vision, but he can't stop thinking about the stupid sun that is still going to rise and set despite the fact that he will never see Katniss Everdeen again.

If only Gale could feel that unbreakable. Then he might not feel so empty.

* * *

_A/N: Before we discuss anything else: I am so so so sorry for this chapter! It literally broke my heart to write this... But don't you fear! I promise that everything will be alright! I hope you aren't too upset with Gale for leaving, and I also hope that the conversation between Peeta and Gale was believable. Please review and let me know what you thought about this chapter!_

_Also, I'm really sorry for the long wait between updates. It's been over two weeks since I posted the last chapter! I'll really try to get the next one up quicker, but I won't make any promises since I haven't even started Chapter Eight yet..._

_And finally, if you find any errors, please please please let me know! It would embarrass me so much to have a terrible mistake in any of these chapters, but I also know I'm the worst proofreader in the world._


	8. Chapter 8

_Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games or the quote below. They belong to Suzanne Collins and Neil Gaiman respectively. _

_A/N: So here's the next chapter. I decided to include this wonderful quote from Neil Gaiman for you to ponder because I think it fits with this chapter perfectly! Try not to hate me too much for the sadness below. It will be resolved soon ;)_

* * *

_Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a... suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you. Then some stupid person, no different than any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own any more. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should just be friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you and rips-you-apart pain. I hate love. _

_-Neil Gaiman_

* * *

**8. Racing The Clock**

Katniss bends down to pick the letter up in a dream-like state. The little folded piece of paper seems to be miles and miles away, like it takes her hand a thousand years to cross the void, but when her fingers brush the thin paper, the depth perception comes back. Her world slants, and she has to lean back against the doorframe to keep herself steady.

Her fingers tremble as they brush the corners of the paper. Gale's words turn to shards of the most fragile glass, and Katniss barely breathes for fear that any movement at all will break them and destroy every last remnant of Gale in her world. She saw him less than six hours ago, but it already feels as though he's slipping away again.

Katniss's fingers gingerly bend back the folds until the full paper rests in her hands.

_Katniss—_

_You probably already know what this is about. It's almost like you don't need to read this note because you already know I'm gone. However, what you don't know is the reason why I'm leaving. _

_I don't want to make your life harder or more complicated. I want you to finally be able to live a life that isn't dictated by impossible, heart-breaking decisions. You've been through enough in your past to deserve a life that is better, and I feel like I keep bringing you back there. You had everything sorted out, and then I had to go and write you that letter. It broke the easiness and the pattern of your life, but you let me come back. Why?_

_You won't tell me why. I didn't understand why. I should have, though. Considering that I was your best friend for many years— that I understood your mind inside and out, backwards and forwards— I should have figured it out quicker. You see, nothing new ever happens. We use the same strategies to solve our problems every time difficulties come around, just in a slightly different manner. No matter how hard we try to learn what solutions work the best, sometimes, when we're scared, we revert back to what caused the problem last time. _

_Katniss, I don't understand why you keep letting me come back. You care so much for Peeta, but you let me come back and hurt myself. Why? Why is that? Why don't you ever stop me? _

_It would be better for both of us. I know that you think it's less painful for me when you lie. I know you just want to keep me safe from getting hurt by stringing me along, but it doesn't work. It didn't work last time during the war when you kissed me, telling me that you'd never go back to Peeta. It almost worked yesterday. _

_But tell me the truth for once. Did you mean what you said to me? Did you really mean it? I don't think you did. It we were talking face to face, you'd get indignant with me and try to ask me how on earth I could possibly know that you weren't telling the truth, but I can see past that now. _

_You couldn't see what I saw last night. Of course, we both saw Peeta break down, but I saw you break down as well. You care so much for him Katniss. I don't even think you understand how much you really do care for him. You might even love him. When he was falling apart last night, it broke your heart, and I know that for a fact. In that instant, I knew it was wrong for me to be here. _

_Even if you wanted to, you couldn't leave Peeta to love me because you already love him so much. And he loves you too. He loves you so much. Despite the fact that he has the flashbacks a lot (I'm going to assume that he does), he loves you more than words can describe. He hasn't physically hurt you before, has he, though? He only hurt you because I wormed my way back into your life. I'm a roadblock, a catalyst, a barrier. _

_And that's why I can't stay around. _

_You need to stop lying to yourself and be with Peeta. Stop pretending that I might have a place in your life. From all the years I spent as your closest friend, I know that it hurts you to let people go, but you're going to have to make the choice to let me leave. I just want you to be happy, and this might be the first step in that direction. _

_Don't feel bad for me, though. Perhaps, in time, I'll be alright again. I just need to get it through my thick skull that maybe we don't belong together, which, I suppose, I knew all along. I guess I was hoping you'd prove me wrong. _

_Maybe in another lifetime, in some other universe, we can be together. We can have hope in that, can't we? In a world where the cards are dealt differently, I hope we can find each other and stay together. Thank you for the good things, and I'm sorry for the bad. I hope that you can, at the very least, think of us as a good lesson learned and not a mistake. _

_Goodbye, Catnip. _

_Love forever and always, Gale_

Katniss barely feels the letter leave her fingers, but, suddenly, it's swooping down onto the carpet again. Its wings crumple beneath it, the delicate beauty turning into tatters of betrayal and pain.

_Goodbye._

She stumbles under the weight of Gale's thoughts. She can't believe how wrong they are. He's always been sensible and intelligent, but _this_… Those deductions must have been made in the dark.

She hates it how he keeps saying she feels obligated to love him. It makes her burn inside to know that he never believes her.

Her thoughts scatter instantly as a wave of panic takes over.

Gale is leaving. Gale could already be gone.

She starts running down the hall before her train of thought can derail. As she bolts down the stairs, a million things whir through her head at the speed of light. _I need to find him. I need to stop him. I need to give him proof. What can I say that hasn't already been said? What proof can be given? How can I make him believe me? When did he—_

Katniss flies down the stairs and collides with something solid. Peeta's arms catch her before she can fall to the ground, and it takes her a moment to steady herself. When she looks up at Peeta's eyes, she can see that her panic matches his.

"I tried to stop him," Peeta says immediately. His voice sounds distraught. "He came down here convinced that he no longer belonged here, and I tried to get him to stay, but I couldn't—"

"You saw him before he left?" Katniss stutters.

Peeta looks at the floor. "Yes, I—"

"Why didn't you come wake me?" Katniss practically shouts. In her emotionally unstable state, she can't help but feel beyond angry with Peeta. Any sensible person would have come and woken her up immediately. She could have stopped Gale before he even got to the train station.

"He made me promise not to!" Peeta says. He sounds ashamed with himself. He sounds depressed. "He told me that I owed him that, at the very least… I'm sorry."

Katniss struggles her way out of Peeta's arms. She shouldn't blame him. Peeta is far too good on his word. He's far too _good _in general. She doesn't deserve him.

"Don't be sorry," Katniss says hurriedly. There are more important things to be attending to. "When did he leave?"

"About thirty minutes ago," Peeta says. "I already checked the train schedule, and the next train to District Two doesn't leave for fifteen minutes. You can still catch him."

Katniss freezes for a second. It pops into her head again: _I don't deserve you. You deserve more than me. _Gale may think that he can't stand next to Peeta's purely good spirit, but she can't either. Staying with him forever would be a shame. Trapping him in her damaged, dark life would be evil. Peeta deserves someone with a heart that's full and loving— even if he denies it and says that he wants nothing more than Katniss for the rest of his life.

He deserves better.

And, yet, she can see it in his eyes that he's breaking. Peeta has loved Katniss for his entire life, but she was never his. She always belonged to Gale. Secretly, somewhere deep inside her, she always loved Gale, and her feelings for Peeta were only ever superficial and forced. Every last straw of hope that Katniss might actually love him has slipped away as he recognizes the look in her eyes.

They watch each other in complete silence for what seems like a lifetime, each wrapped up in their own thoughts about the other's suffering. They both open their mouths to put their feelings to words, but Katniss finds them first.

"Peeta, I'm so sorry," that's all she has to say. Her voice goes quite after that, and she's not sure what else she can say. Words can't cover the betrayal she is committing by loving Gale after these years of being close to Peeta.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Peeta says softly. He means it. She shouldn't feel _sorry. _

"_No_, Peeta…" she says.

Peeta's eyes soften. "You know how yesterday morning I told you that I wouldn't be jealous if you and Gale became friends again?" he asks quietly. Katniss nods. "Well, I only said that because I knew I didn't stand a chance."

Katniss looks like she's been hit by a train. Her eyes go wide, glazing over with shimmering tears, and her lips part ever so slightly as the words dangle uselessly from her tongue. She can't possibly think of a response for her obliviousness.

A sad smile curves Peeta's lips. He reaches out and takes one of Katniss's hands. A final loving contact. "I'll be okay, Katniss," he assures her. "It isn't worth it to sacrifice your happiness for mine. Go stop Gale. You belong together."

Katniss stumbles backwards and out the front door before anything else can be said. She knows she doesn't have much time— she'll be racing the clock to beat the train from leaving.

* * *

Gale wonders when Katniss will wake up. He wonders when she'll read the letter. He wonders if all the shit he wrote down really is true. He wonders if she'll scream and come after him. He wonders if he'll be gone.

Fifteen minutes until the train leaves. It's barely morning in District Twelve, and the sky is a pale gray dome that hangs low over the trees. Maybe it'll rain later and wash away the past few days from Katniss's memories. Or maybe the rain will streak down the train window like unshed tears.

Either way, it'll be agony for Gale. It was agony last time, too. When he kissed her cheek for the last time after the war, it felt like he was ripping his heart in half as he walked away from her room. It was a soul-hurt. It ripped him apart. This time will tear him, too.

It'll probably hurt worse this time because he _knows_ he won't be able to come back after this. Last time, he left with a question: _Until we meet again? _This time he knows the answer: _Never._

Five minutes until the train leaves. They're letting people on the train at this point.

Gale stands and takes a moment to look around at District Twelve, like he did yesterday when the train was pulling into the station. When did this place that used to be his home become so foreign and hurtful? Sure, when he was a kid, nothing about his life was that great, but at least there was love that didn't break him. He felt stronger than he does now, anyway. Now, he's just tired. The eighteen-year-old Gale Hawthorne who longed for a rebellion and piece of Katniss Everdeen's heart is now a man who has realized that neither of those two things is too easy to win. War is more than a few gunshots and strategies. Loving Katniss is more than a chase or a couple scars. You make sacrifices to win. In a battle, you give up a part of your humanity as you set your aim to another man's heart, and, in love, you sacrifice the wholeness of your heart for the happiness of the one you love.

See, it's more than a few gunshots. It's more than the scars.

It's the pain.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: Soooo sorry for the late update, but I had a hard time with this chapter. I always find that it's hardest to write the moment when everything wraps itself up because that's the last thing you leave everyone with... Oh, well, I think I ended up with something that satisfied me, so I hope you enjoy it too. _

* * *

**9. The Train Station **

Katniss's feet pound against the road, filling her ears with a constant drum beat. Her heart thuds along with it, but her pulse races, unable to be controlled. She hardly even feels the exertion of this endlessly long run— the hammering of her heart is caused by the possibility of reaching the train station and watching the train rush away into the distance. She imagines it happening, and her nerves scream. She imagines how painful it would be to have Gale ripped away so fiercely like that…

Katniss pushes back her sleeve and glances down at her watch.

_Ten minutes. _

That's enough to make her run faster, pushing harder towards train station. Everything goes by in a haze. Houses, people, trees. They all rush together as she sprints by, thoughts blurring with feelings and sights in a smudge of color and sounds that's almost mind-numbing.

Katniss feels like she's on fire. Her whole body resists the constant motion. She gasps for breath, sucking in oxygen to fuel her thoughts and her muscles. It burns so fiercely, but it's less about the physical exertion than it is about the panic.

Every tick of the clock raises another vein of terror. With every passing moment, Gale could be nearing the train's closing doors. Every single step he takes across the platform could be leading him endlessly away from her. No one else would see it. The fire is only between the two of them, and it burns for their loss.

Then, like a beacon of hope, the train station rises out of the blur of colors. Katniss feels like she's flying towards it at the speed of a hovercraft. It feels like she'll never be able to stop. She takes a moment to check her watch.

_Five minutes. _

It's a dead sprint now. She couldn't physically move faster if she tried. If her body would obey the command of constant acceleration, she probably would have collapsed in a strained, destroyed heap at least five minutes ago. But no matter how her body screams for mercy, something keeps pulling her forward.

Gale must have a sort of gravity. He's that type of person who'll take a chance and let you inside his massive fortifications, and he'll have such an effect over you that you'll always be drawn to him. He insists that his soul is dark and heavy, but he'll always retain the quality of perseverance, bravery, and light. He'll never lose that, no matter what he insists. There's always that candle in the darkness. The flame flickers and dances in the wind, but it always burns. Always. Endlessly. Infinitely.

Katniss doesn't understand why she didn't always see that flame. How could she not have known the extent of his love for her? Sometimes she wonders if she was blind before she was reaped. She doesn't understand why she couldn't have seen that she mattered to him. That would have made things so much simpler. If she'd known then, it would have saved a million years' worth of heartbreak.

The train station is emptying, and the train is filling up. The last few stragglers are milling around the platform— some waste time; some take in their surroundings one last time; and others say goodbye.

There's a man in the center of the train station saying goodbye to empty space. He stands tall but broken like a soldier returned from war with too few comrades and too many demons. He stares out into the tree line beyond the train, but, inside, he's saying goodbye to a woman who he believes has lied to him, and his strength is shattering from her final blow.

But that woman, who _hasn't_ lied, is here, too. She is prepared to never lie again, amazed by the amount of bravery and honesty that the man can put into a letter. She is stunned by his ability to rip out his soul, twist it into words, and give it to her without second thoughts.

Because that man, Gale, is more than just some man. He's amazing, and he needs to know that.

Letting him leave would be the worst decision Katniss could ever make.

The platform is silent except for the soft, caressing whistle of the wind and the dull chatter of people getting on the train. Everything is muffled besides the heartbeat that is pounding in Katniss's ears, and she is fully prepared to shout his name for all its worth across the platform. She's not scared to cause a scene or shatter the silence of the platform. Not at all. She's propelled forward by Gale's intense courage and unfailing strength.

Her mouth opens, lips barely parting to call out his name, but she doesn't need to say a word to get Gale's attention. Out of the corner of his eye, he must see her like a ghost. Ever so slowly, as if he's worried she's just a figment of his imagination, Gale turns to face her.

When their gazes connect and lock onto each other, it feels like a slap. The intensity of emotion is tangible and thick in the air. They say a million things without opening their mouths.

Katniss tries to think of what she can say out loud, but just looking at Gale seems to have changed all sensible thought into nothingness. Gale used up all his words in that letter, so nothing must seem relevant for him to voice.

His eyebrows knit together, and his shoulders roll in an honest shrug. _I have nothing left to say. I'm sorry._

That sparks the fire inside Katniss once again. The words return, and she finally breaks the silence. "Don't you dare!" she shouts. It cracks across the platform like lightning. "Don't you even _dare, _Gale!"

Gale's expression dissolves into something between exasperation and weariness. "Don't I dare do _what?" _

"_Leave, _Gale!" Katniss shouts desperately. She suddenly finds herself near tears. "Don't you dare _leave!"_

Something breaks in Gale's eyes. "Katniss," he sighs in a gruff and tired voice. "We've… we've had this argument before. A million times—"

"And we'll have it a million times more," Katniss snaps. "I will continue to argue with you until I get it through your thick skull that you know _nothing _about what's going on in my head!"

"I'm just trying to make it easier!" Gale says loudly. "We always fight about this, and obviously there's too much fire between to two of us!"

"Shut _up, _Gale! If you knew anything at all about what I'm feeling then you wouldn't have left!" Katniss shouts.

"Come _on, _Katniss!" Gale says loudly. "Stop trying to protect me or whatever it is you're trying to do! I don't want you to sacrifice your happiness for mine!'

That hits Katniss as hard as a moving train. A million parallels between Peeta and Gale pop into her head, and they drown out everything else. No matter how much Gale insists that Peeta is a better man than him, they're really the same when you get to the core of it. They're both just men who were broken by a war they fought to save the ones they love. That's really all there is to it.

Katniss blinks back tears. "That's the same thing Peeta told me before I came here to stop you."

That finds Gale just above the heart. He grits his teeth and turns slightly aware from her. "Oh Jesus Christ—"

"But it was only relevant when Peeta said it because I really would be compromising my happiness if I let you leave," Katniss says, holding her voice as steady as possible.

"Really, Katniss?" Gale shouts, his eyes flashing. "Would you really be compromising your happiness? You seemed pretty damn happy before I showed up!"

"I wasn't happy, Gale!" Katniss shouts back. "I was just floating by! I wasn't happy— I was hardly living! Peeta and I have been limping along these past few years! I didn't realize how happy I could be until you came back into my life!"

"Oh, come on! I _wish_ we could be happy together!" Gale says bitterly. "We've done nothing but fight these past few days! Can you imagine what a lifetime of that would be like?"

A single thought of spending forever with Gale almost knocks Katniss over. "I want that, Gale!" she says desperately. "I want that so badly! We fight all the time, but we always figure it out in the end, don't we?"

A bitter laugh escapes Gale's lips. "What if we can't figure it out this time? What if you're making another promise you can't keep?"

Katniss boils over. "I hate that you can't trust me anymore. I hate that," she bites out.

Gale cringes. "Just trying to make the best decision… I'm just trying—"

"To make my decisions for me," Katniss finishes sharply, "and you try to deny every feeling I have for you."

Gale can't seem to really come up with a response to that. "Well—"

"You told me once that I would pick whoever I couldn't survive without," Katniss says, forcing her voice to stay steady and even.

"And you made _that_ decision, didn't you," Gale says. His head snaps to the side so that he's staring out at the tree line again. Looking upon past memories. Painting the sky red with thoughts of the war.

"No, _I_ didn't," Katniss says harshly. "_You _did. _You _made that decision for me. You just left— you didn't give me a chance to choose otherwise."

"Be serious, Katniss!" Gale says. "Like you would have chosen me if I had stuck around."

Katniss's mouth opens to retort but hangs there for a second.

Gale breaks a little more. "See—"

"I might not have picked you initially, but choosing Peeta wouldn't have been the right decision," Katniss says firmly.

That doesn't satisfy Gale, though. Not even close. "Are you kidding me? You can't survive without Peeta, Katniss! He's so _essential_ to you!"

"He's _important_ to me, but he's not essential in that way, Gale," Katniss says. Her voice is rising again. "I know that last night I said you were _important _to me, but I was just trying to make it easier on him. You're the one who's essential to me."

Gale flinches and closes his eyes. "I said you'd make a decision based on who you couldn't survive without out. Peeta—"

"I _wanted_ to need him," Katniss says desperately. This is the last leg of the race. If she can't convince him now, she'll lose him. "At the end of the war, I wanted it to be Peeta that I needed, but it was never him. It was always you."

Gale swallows. He's losing ground. His argument is falling. "Katniss—"

"Because I love you, Gale," Katniss says. It slips out almost without her permission, but she doesn't regret it as it passes her lips. There's so much feeling behind her words that it sweeps away everything else. "I love you, and I have always loved you."

Gale sucks in a breath, and it echoes around in the silence that Katniss's words just created. If she wanted to, Katniss could probably count Gale's heartbeats. She can almost feel them beating with her own in her chest. For a couple seconds, it's just the two of them. Everything else disappears, and they're both left to absorb what Katniss just confessed to.

Suddenly, Katniss is close enough to Gale that she could memorize every fleck of light as it hits his steel gray eyes. She's staring up at him, and he's staring down at her. The only sounds in their universe are their soft breaths and the slight ringing in their ears.

Gale's mind almost falls to shambles as it works through what just happened. Katniss's voice repeats itself in the back of his head, echoing slightly as it comes forward into his consciousness. For the first time in the whole conversation, Gale doesn't even consider not believing Katniss. In the past she's kissed him, assured him of her affections, and promised never to go back to Peeta, but she has never said that she loved him. Until now.

Rays of light break through a decade of darkness, and it's like the last puzzle piece has finally fallen into place. It's like that feeling when you wake up after a deep sleep and see the sun streaming in through the windows, and you realize just how beautiful the light is.

Gale can feel Katniss's breath on his neck— that's how close she's standing. She looks up through her eyelashes at him, and he can see a depth of emotion that he wouldn't have been able to see before.

"Do you need proof for that, too?" Katniss asks quietly.

Considering that it all feels too fast for a second, Gale nods. "Maybe."

Without a single touch of hesitance, Katniss closes the distance between the two of them completely and hops up on her toes, pressing her lips against Gale's. Colors dance behind his eyelids as he blocks out everything except Katniss. His hand finds the back of her head, pulling her lips harder against his, and all thoughts of his doubt in Katniss's love disappears within a blink. It's proof enough.

Gale is blinded by the sunlight when Katniss finally lowers herself back onto her heels. He wonders why she pulled away for a flicker of a second, but then he hears the train whistle. The locomotive pulls away just as Gale turns his head to look at it.

"Regret missing that?" Katniss asks, her hand finding his.

"Not in the slightest," Gale replies. He means it.

Katniss's fingers lace themselves between his, and it feels like a dream. But, in reality, Gale's finally woken up from the nightmare. He's been living in the darkness of sleep these past few years, and the demons have finally loosened their grip enough to let him free.

Gale looks at Katniss, and he realizes that he's never seen a more beautiful light.

* * *

_A/N: So there you go! I'm pondering writing an epilogue of sorts, but, for all intents and purposes, this is how the stories ends. What do you all think of an epilogue? Should I write it? And, overall, what did you think of the story?_

_Thank you so much to everyone who stuck with this story and gave me such wonderful reviews! You are all the most fantastic readers I could ask for! _


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